O  F  TH  E 

U  N  I  VER.5  ITY 
OF  1  LLI  N  O  I  S 

253.2 

L46h 

1884 


S 


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AN 


<7 


HISTORICAL  SKETCH 

OF 

SACERDOTAL  CELIBACY 


IK  THE 


CHRISTIAN  CHURCH. 


BY 

HENRY  C.  LEA. 


SECOND  EDITION,  ENLARGED. 


Oil  yap  Qeov  kart  Ktveiv  'em  ra  irapa  qvclv. 

Atiienagor^:  pro  Christiania  Legatio. 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

New  York  11  East  Seventeenth  Street 

(3T6e  CHtieru'itJe  $res6,  <£am&nDge 
1884 


Cl 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1884,  by 
HENRY  C.  LEA, 

in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress.  All  rights  reserved. 


DORN  AN,  PRINTER. 


The  following  work  was  written  several  years  since,  simply  as  an 
historical  study,  and  wfith  little  expectation  of  its  publication.  Recent 
movements  in  several  portions  of  the  great  Christian  Church  seem  to 
indicate,  however,  that  a  record  of  ascetic  celibacy,  as  developed  in 
the  past,  may  not  be  without  interest  to  those  who  are  watching  the 
tendencies  of  the  present. 

So  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  work  of  the  kind  exists  in  English 
literature,  and  those  which  have  appeared  in  the  Continental  lan¬ 
guages  are  almost  exclusively  of  a  controversial  character.  It  has 
been  my  aim  to  avoid  polemics,  and  I  have  therefore  sought  merely 
to  state  facts  as  I  have  found  them,  without  regard  to  their  bearing 
on  either  side  of  the  questions  involved.  As  those  questions  have 
long  been  the  subject  of  ardent  disputation,  it  has  seemed  proper  to 
substantiate  every  statement  with  a  reference  to  its  authority. 

The  scope  of  the  work  is  designedly  confined  to  the  enforced  celi¬ 
bacy  of  the  sacerdotal  class.  The  vast  history  of  monachism  has 
therefore  only  been  touched  upon  incidentally  when  it  served  to 
throw  light  upon  the  rise  and  progress  of  religious  asceticism.  The 
various  celibate  communities  which  have  arisen  in  this  country'  such 
as  the  Dunkers  and  Shakers,  are  likewise  excluded  from  the  plan  of 
the  volume.  These  limitations  occasion  me  less  regret  since  the 
appearance  of  M.  de  Montalembert’s  “Monks  of  the  West”  and 
Mr.  W.  Hepworth  Dixon’s  “New  America,”  in  which  the  student 
will  probably  find  all  that  he  may  require  on  these  subjects. 

Besides  the  controversial  importance  of  the  questions  connected 
with  Christian  asceticism,  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  a  brief  history 
like  the  present  might  perhaps  possess  interest  for  the  general  reader, 


VI 


PREFACE. 


not  only  on  account  of  the  influence  which  ecclesiastical  celibacy  has 
exerted,  directly  and  indirectly,  on  the  progress  of  civilization,  but 
also  from  the  occasional  glimpse  into  the  interior  life  of  past  ages 
afforded  in  reviewing  the  effect  upon  society  of  the  policy  of  the 
church  as  respects  the  relations  of  the  sexes.  The  more  ambitious 
historian,  in  detailing  the  intrigues  of  the  court  and  the  vicissitudes 
of  the  field,  must  of  necessity  neglect  the  minuter  incidents  which 
illustrate  the  habits,  the  morals,  and  the  modes  of  thought  of  bygone 
generations.  From  such  materials  a  monograph  like  this  is  con¬ 
structed,  and  it  may  not  be  unworthy  the  attention  of  those  who 
deem  that  the  life  of  nations  does  not  consist  exclusively  of  political 
revolutions  and  military  achievements. 

Philadelphia,  May,  1867. 


In  reprinting  this  work  such  changes  have  been  made  as  further 
reading  and  reflection  have  seemed  to  render  advisable.  The  first 
two  and  the  last  sections  have  been  wholly  rewritten,  and  numerous 
additions  have  been  made  throughout  the  volume.  To  accommodate 
as  far  as  possible  the  considerable  amount  of  matter  thus  introduced, 
I  have  omitted  from  the  footnotes  all  extracts  which  merely  verified 
without  illustrating  the  text. 


Philadelphia,  December,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


A.  D.  t  PAGE 

Influence  of  the  church  on  modern  civilization  .  17 

Effect  of  celibacy  in  moulding  its  destiny  .  .  19 

I.— ASCETICISM. 

Character  of  early  Judaism  ....  21 

Oriental  and  Hellenic  influences  ...  23 

Growth  of  asceticism  ......  25 

Pauline  Christianity  ......  26 

Admission  that  celibacy  is  of  post-apostolic  origin  28 

II.— THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 

Early  ascetic  tendencies  .....  31 

Exaggerated  in  the  heresies  ....  33 

Influence  of  Buddhism  .....  34 

Objection  to  second  marriages  ....  36 

c.  150  “  Digami  ”  rejected  from  the  ministry  ...  37 

Application  of  the  Levitical  rule  ...  38 

Growth  of  asceticism — self-mutilation  ...  40 

Vows  of  virginity  and  their  results  ...  41 

c.  280  Influence  of  Manichseisin  .....  43 

Condemnation  of  marriage  .....  45 

305  First  injunction  of  celibacy,  by  the  Council  of 

Elvira  ........  50 

314  Disregarded  elsewhere  .....  51 

III.— THE  COUNCIL  OF  NICJEA. 

Growing  centralization  of  the  church  ...  52 

325  The  first  general  council  .....  53 

It  prohibits  the  residence  of  suspected  women  .  53 

The  story  of  Paphnutius  .....  56 

325 — 350  Married  priests  not  as  yet  interfered  with  .  .  58 


Vlll 

CONTENTS. 

IV.— LEGISLATION. 

A.  D. 

PAGE 

348—400 

Enforcement  of  voluntary  vows  .... 

59 

Prohibition  of  female  ministry  .... 

60 

362 

Reaction — the  Council  of  Gangra 

61 

384 

Celibacy  adopted  by  the  Latin  church 

64 

385 

Decretal  of  Siricius  ...... 

65 

V.- 

-ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 

Resistance  to  enforced  asceticism 

67 

390 

Jovinian  ........ 

69 

404 

Vigilantius  ....... 

70 

390—419 

The  church  of  Africa  yields  .... 

73 

401 

Compromise  of  the  Cis-Alpine  church  . 

75 

Popular  assistance  in  enforcing  celibacy 

77 

Effect  of  enforced  celibacy  on  clerical  morals 

78 

General  demoralization  of  society 

81 

VI.— THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 

Divergence  between  the  East  and  the  West  . 

83 

381 

Compulsory  celibacy  unknown  in  the  East  . 

84 

400 

Council  of  Constantinople — Antony  of  Ephesus — 

Synesius  ....... 

85 

430 

First  enforcement  of  celibacy  in  Thessaly  . 

86 

Celibacy  not  obligatory  ..... 

86 

528—548 

Legislation  of  Justinian  ..... 

86 

680 

The  Quinisext  in  Trullo — Discipline  unchanged  . 

88 

900 

I?inal  legislation  of  Leo  the  Philosopher 

90 

The  Nestorians — clerical  marriage  permitted 

91 

The  Abyssinian  church  ..... 

92 

VII.— MONACHISM. 

Buddhist  model  of  monachism  .... 

94 

Apostolic  order  of  widows  ..... 

96 

Devotees  in  the  primitive  church — no  vows  irre¬ 

vocable  .••••••• 

97 

250—285 

Paul  the  Thebaean  and  St.  Antony 

97 

CONTEN  ix 

A.  D.  PAGE 

350 — 400  Increase  of  monachism  .....  98 

Early  systems — vows  not  irrevocable  .  .  .  101 

Greater  strictness  required  of  female  devotees  .  103 

c.  400  Marriages  of  nuns  still  valid  ....  104 

450 — 458  Conflicting  legislation  .....  105 

Strictness  of  the  Eastern  church — Political  neces¬ 
sity  of  controlling  monachism  ....  106 

390 — 456  Monks  confined  to  their  convents  .  .  .  108 

532 — 545  Justinian  renders  monastic  vows  irrevocable  .  108 

Disorders  of  Western  monachism  .  .  .  109 

528  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia — vows  not  irrevocable 

under  his  rule  ......  Ill 

590 — 604  Gregory  I.  enforces  the  inviolability  of  vows  .  113 

Continued  irregularities  of  monachism  .  .  115 

VIII.— THE  BARBARIANS. 

The  Church  and  the  Barbarians  ....  117 

The  Merovingian  bishops  .  .  .  .  .118 

The  Spanish  Arians  .  .  .  .  .  .120 

589 —  711  Neglect  of  discipline  in  Spain  ....  121 

557 — 580  State  of  discipline  in  Italy  .  .  .  .  .122 

Dilapidation  of  ecclesiastical  property  .  .123 

590 —  604  Reforms  of  Gregory  the  Great  .  .  .  .123 

IX.— THE  CARLO VINGIANS. 

Demoralization  of  the  VII.  and  VIII.  centuries  .  126 

Reorganizing  efforts  of  the  Carlovingians  .  .128 

742 — 755  Labors  of  St.  Boniface  .  .  .  .  .131 

Resistance  of  the  married  clergy  .  .  .132 

755  Pepin-le-Bref  undertakes  the  reform  .  .  .134 

Sacerdotal  celibacy  reestablished  .  .  .135 

Reforms  of  Charlemagne  and  Louis-le-Bebonnaire 
— Their  inefficiency  .  .  .  .  .135 

840 — 912  Increasing  demoralization  under  the  later  Car¬ 
lovingians  .  .  .  .  .  .  .139 

874  Legal  procedures  prescribed  by  Hincmar  .  .  140 

893  Sacerdotal  marriage  resumed  ....  142 


X 


IT  ENTS. 


X.— THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 

A.  D.  PAGE 

Barbarism  of  the  tenth  century — Debasement  of 
the  papacy  .......  144 

Tendency  to  hereditary  benefices — Dilapidation  of 
church  property  ......  145 

938  Leo  VII.  vainly  prohibits  sacerdotal  marriage  .  148 

952  It  is  defended  by  St.  Ulric  of  Augsburg  .  .  153 

925 — 967  Unsuccessfully  resisted  by  Ratherius  of  Verona 

and  Atto  of  Vercelli  .  .  .  .  .150 

Opposing  influences  among  prelates  .  .  .  152 

Relaxation  of  the  canons  .  .  .  .  .154 

942 — 1054  Three  Archbishops  of  Rouen  ....  155 

Indifference  of  Silvester  II.  ....  157 

Celibacy  practically  obsolete  ....  158 

XI. — SAXON  ENGLAND. 

Corruption  of  the  ancient  British  church  .  .159 

Asceticism  of  the  Irish  and  Scottish  churches  .  160 

597  Celibacy  introduced  among  the  Saxons  by  St. 

Augustin  .  .  .  .  .  .  .161 

Disorders  in  the  Saxon  nunneries  .  .  .163 

747,  787  Councils  of  Clovesho  and  Chelsea  .  .  .  164 

Neglect  of  discipline  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  cen¬ 
turies  L'.a  .....  165 

964  St.  Dunstan  undertakes  a  reformation  .  .  .  166 

964 — 974  Energy  of  Edgar  the  Pacific  .  .  .  .  .  168 

975  Reaction  after  the  death  of  Edgar  .  .  .170 

1006  Failure  of  Dunstan’s  reforms  ....  171 

1009  Council  of  Enham — Sacerdotal  polygamy  .  .  172 

1032  Legislation  of  Cnut  ......  173 

Sacerdotal  marriage  established  .  .  .  .175 

XII. — PETER  DAMIANI. 

1022  Council  of  Pavia — Efforts  to  restore  discipline  .  178 

1031  Council  of  Bourges  ......  179 

Clerical  marriage  and  profligacy  .  .  .180 

Revival  of  asceticism — San  Giovanni  Gualberto  .  183 


CONTENTS 


XI 


A.  D.  PAGE 

1046  Henry  III.  undertakes  the  leformation  of  the 

church — Clement  II.  ....  184 

St.  Peter  Damiani  ......  185 

1049  Leo  IX . 187 

Damiani’s  Liber  Gomorrhianus  .  .  .  .188 

Reformatory  efforts  of  Leo — Councils  of  Rheims 
and  Mainz  .......  188 

1051 — 1053  Attempts  to  reform  the  Italian  clergy  .  .  .  189 

Failure  of  the  Reformation  «  .  .  .  .190 

1058  The  Papacy  independent — Damiani  and  Hilde¬ 

brand  ........  192 

1059  Appeal  to  the  laity  for  assistance  .  .  .194 

1059  Council  of  Melfi — Deposition  of  Bishop  of  Trani  .  197 

1060  Damiani  endeavors  to  reform  the  prelates  .  .  198 

The  persecuted  clergy  organize  resistance  .  .199 

1061  Schismatic  election  of  Cadaius  ....  200 

He  is  supported  by  the  married  clergy  .  .  201 

1063  Renewed  efforts  of  Alexander  II.  and  Damiani  .  202 

Their  failure  .......  204 


XIII. — MILAN. 


Milan  the  centre  of  Manichseism  .  .  .  207 

1045  Election  of  an  archbishop — four  disappointed  com¬ 
petitors  ........  209 

Marriage  universal  among  71  lilanese  clergy  .  .210 

Landolfo  and  Arialdo  excite  the  people  .  .211 

1056  Popular  tumults — Plunder  of  the  clergy  .  .  212 

1058  The  Svnod  of  Fontaneto  defends  the  married 

%/ 

priests  ........  212 

A  furious  civil  wrar  results  .  .  .  .  .213 

1059  Damiani  obtains  the  submission  of  the  clergy  .  213 

1061  Milan  embraces  the  party  of  Cadaius  .  .  .  215 

Death  of  Landolfo — Erlembaldo  takes  his  place  .  215 

1062  His  success  .......  216 

1066  Excommunication  of  Archbishop  Guido — Mar¬ 

tyrdom  of  Arialdo  .  .  .  .  .  .216 

1067  Compromise  and  temporary  truce  .  .  .217 

1069  Guido  forced  to  resign — War  between  Gotefrido 

and  Azzo  for  the  succession 


218 


Xll 


CONTENTS. 


A.  D.  PAGE 

1075  Death  of  Erlembaldo — Tedaldo  archbishop  in  spite 

of  Gregory  VII.  ......  219 

Influence  of  celibacy  on  the  struggle  .  .  .  220 

1093 — 1095  Triumph  of  sacerdotalism  .....  221 

Similar  trouble  throughout  Tuscany  .  .  .  222 

XI V.— HILDEBRAND . 

1073  Election  of  Gregory  VII. — His  character  .  .  223 

Necessity  of  celibacy  to  his  scheme  of  theocratic 

supremacy  .......  225 

1074  Synod  of  Rome — Repetition  of  previous  canons  .  227 

Attempts  to  enforce  them  throughout  Europe — 

Resistance  of  the  clergy  .....  228 

Three  bishops — Otho  of  Constance — Altmann  of 
Passau — Siegfrid  of  Mainz  ....  229 

1074  Gregory  appeals  to  the  laity  ....  232 

Resultant  persecution  of  the  clergy  .  .  .  234 

1077  Violent  resistance  of  the  married  clergy  .  .  236 

Political  complications  .....  237 

1085  Papalists  and  Imperialists  both  condemn  sacer¬ 
dotal  marriage  ......  239 

XV.— CENTRAL  EUROPE. 

Depression  of  the  Catholic  party — Sacerdotal  mar¬ 
riage  connived  at  .  .  .  .  .  241 

1089  Urban  II.  renews  the  persecution  .  .  .  242 

1094  Contumacy  of  the  German  priesthood  .  .  .  243 

1105  Deposition  of  Henry  IV. — Germany  restored  to 

Catholic  unity  ......  244 

1118 — 1175  Sacerdotal  marriage  nevertheless  common  .  .  245 

1092 — 1257  First  introduction  of  celibacy  in  Hungary  .  .  248 

1197 — 1279  Introduction  of  celibacy  in  Poland  .  .  .  251 

1213 — 1248  Disregard  of  the  canons  in  Sweden  .  .  .  252 

1117 — 1266  Their  enforcement  in  Denmark  ....  253 

1219 — 1271  Their  neglect  in  Friesland  .....  254 


CONTENTS. 


Xlll 


XYI. — FRANCE. 

A.  D.  PAGE 

1056 — 1064  Efforts  to  introduce  sacerdotal  celibacy  .  .  255 

1074 — 1078  Contumacy  of  the  clergy  .....  256 

1080  William  the  Conqueror  intervenes — First  allusion 

to  licenses  to  sin  .  .  .  .  .  257 

Successful  resistance  of  the  Norman  and  Breton 
clergy  ........  258 

1076 — 1094  Troubles  in  Flanders  ......  259 

Confusion  caused  by  the  attempted  reform  .  .  262 

1095  Council  of  Clermont — Its  canons  disregarded  .  263 

Condition  of  the  monastic  establishments  .  .  264 

Hereditary  transmission  of  benefices  .  .  .  265 

Miracles  invoked  in  aid  of  the  reform  .  .  266 

1119  Calixtus  II.  commences  a  new  reform  .  .  .  267 

Resistance  of  the  Norman  priesthood  .  .  .  268 

Abelard  and  Heloise — Standard  of  morals  erected 
by  the  church  ......  269 

1212  Continuance  of  clerical  marriage  .  .  .270 

XVII.— NORMAN  ENGLAND. 

1066  Canons  not  enforced  by  William  I.  271 

1076  First  effort  made  bv  the  Council  of  Winchester  .  272 

1102  St.  Anselm  undertakes  the  reform — Council  of 

London  273 

Resistance  of  the  priests — Failure  of  the  move¬ 
ment  ........  275 

1104  Henry  I.  uses  the  reform  as  a  financial  expedient  276 

1108  He  enforces  outward  obedience  ....  277 

1126  Stubborn  contumacy  of  the  priesthood  .  .279 

1129  Henry  again  speculates  on  clerical  immorality  .  280 

1138 — 1171  Disorders  of  the  English  church  ....  281 

Consorts  of  priests  no  longer  termed  wives  .  .  283 

1208  King  John  discovers  their  financial  value  .  .  283 

Venality  of  the  ecclesiastical  officials  .  .  .  284 

“  Focarige  ”  still  universal  .....  285 

1215  Indignation  of  the  clergy  at  the  reforms  of  Inno¬ 
cent  III.  .......  286 

1237  Cardinal  Otto  and  the  Council  of  London  .  .  288 

Popular  poems  concerning  the  reform  .  .  .  289 


XIV 


CONTENTS. 


A.  D. 

1250 — 1268  Gradual  extinction  of  clerical  marriage  in  England 
Robert  Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln 
Fruitless  legislation  against  concubinage 
12th-15th  C.  Sacerdotal  marriage  in  Wales  . 


XVIII.— IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 


1130—1149 

1186—1320 

1124—1153 

1225—1268 


Degradation  of  the  Irish  church  prior  to  the 
twelfth  century  ...... 

Reforms  of  St.  Malachi — Influence  of  Rome 
Monastic  character  of  the  reformed  church  . 
Condition  of  the  church  in  the  English  Pale 
Degeneration  of  the  Scottish  Culdees  . 

David  I.  reforms  the  church  and  reestablishes 
celibacy  ....... 

Immorality  of  the  Scottish  clergy 


XIX.— SPAIN. 


11th  Cent. 
1068—1080 
1101—1129 
1260 
1323 


Independent  barbarism  of  the  Spanish  church — 
Marriage  universal  .  .  .  .  . 

Encroachments  of  Rome — sacerdotal  marriage  con¬ 
demned  ........ 

Reforms  of  Diego  Gelmirez — Marriage  not  inter¬ 
fered  with  ....... 

Legislation  of  Alfonso  the  Wise — Concubinage 
universal  ....... 

Concubinage  organized  as  a  safeguard  by  the  laity 

Corruption  throughout  the  middle  ages 


XX.— GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


1123 

1130 

1139 

1148 


1150 

1158—1181 


Marriage  now  first  dissolved  by  Holy  Orders 
The  innovation  not  as  yet  enforced 
Sacerdotal  marriage  formally  declared  void  by  the 
Second  Council  of  Lateran  .  .  .  . 

Confirmed  by  the  Council  of  Rheims — Denied  by 
Gratian  ....... 

The  new  doctrine  receives  no  obedience 
Alexander  III.  insists  upon  it 
But  excepts  immoral  ecclesiastics 
Conflict  of  rules  and  exceptions  . 


PAGE 

290 

292 

293 
293 


295 

296 

297 

298 

299 

300 

301 


302 

303 
305 

308 

310 

311 


313 

314 

315 

316 

318 

319 

320 
322 


CONTENTS. 


XV 


A.  D.  PAGE 

1206 — 1255  Case  of  Bossaert  d’Avesnes  .....  323 

Alexander  III.  proposes  to  restore  clerical  mar¬ 
riage  ........  325 

1187 — 1198  Efforts  of  the  popes  to  enforce  the  canons  .  .  326 

1215  Fourth  Council  of  Lateran — Triumph  of  Sacer¬ 
dotalism  .  .  .  .  .  .  327 

XXI.— RESULTS. 

Recognition  of  the  obligation  of  celibacy  .  .  330 

Increase  of  immorality  .....  331 

13th-15th  C.  Fruitless  attempts  to  restrain  corruption  .  .  333 

1231  Recognition  of  children  of  ecclesiastics  .  .  335 

1225 — 1416  Efforts  to  restrict  hereditary  transmission  .  .  338 

1317  Recognition  of  concubinage  ....  339 

Successful  resistance  to  reform  ....  340 

12th-15th  C.  Morals  of  the  papal  court  .....  341 

Influence  on  society  of  sacerdotal  celibacy  .  .  346 

Influence  of  monachism  .....  357 

XXII.— THE  MILITARY  ORDERS. 

1120  Knights  of  St.  John  vowed  to  celibacy  .  .  362 

1128  Knights  of  the  Temple  vowed  to  celibacy  .  .362 

1175  Knights  of  St.  James  of  the  Sword  allowed  to 

marry  ........  363 

1441  Marriage  permitted  to  the  Order  of  Calatrava  .  364 

1496  And  to  the  Orders  of  Avis  and  Jesus  Christ  .  365 

1167  Order  of  St.  Michael  allowed  to  marry  once  .  365 

Reforms  attempted  in  the  Order  of  St.  John  .  366 

The  Teutonic  Knights  .....  366 

XXIII.— THE  HERESIES. 

Asceticism  of  mediaeval  Manichseism  .  .  .  367 

Difficulty  of  combating  it  .  .  .  .  .  369 

1146  Antisacerdotalism — The  Petrobrusians  and  Hen- 

ricians  ........  370 

1148  Eon  de  l’Etoile  .......  371 

c.  1160  The  Waldenses  .  .  .  .  .  .  .372 


XVI 


CONTENTS. 


A.  D.  PAGE 

1294  Antisacerdotalism  of  the  Franciscans — The  Frati- 

celli . 375 

1341  John  of  Pirna  .  .  .  .  .  .  .378 

1377  Wickliffe . 378 

1394  The  Lollards  denounce  clerical  celibacy  .  .  381 

1415 — 1438  The  Hussites — They  maintain  ascetic  celibacy  .  382 

1411 — 1414  Brethren  of  the  Cross — Men  of  Intelligence  .  385 

1488 — 1498  Savonarola  .......  386 


XXIV.— THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


1418 

1422 

1435 


1484—1500 

1496 

1476 

1479 

1485 


Demoralization  of  the  sacerdotal  body  .  .  388 

Futile  efforts  of  the  Council  of  Constance  .  .  390 

Efforts  of  Martin  V.  .  .  .  .  .  .  392 

Undiminished  corruption  and  symptoms  of  revolt  393 
The  Council  of  Bale  attempts  a  reform  .  .  395 

Impotence  of  the  Basilian  canons — Venality  of 


the  papal  court  ......  396 

Condition  of  the  church  in  Italy,  France,  England, 


Spain,  Germany,  and  Hungary 

.  398 

Relaxation  of  monastic  discipline 

.  402 

John  of  Nicklaushausen  .... 

.  405 

Sacerdotal  marriage  advocated  as  a  remedy 

.  405 

John  ot  Oberwesel  ..... 

.  407 

Heresy  of  Jean  Laillier  .... 

.  408 

XXV.— THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


1510 

1518 

1517—1520 

1521 

1522 


1524 


Irreverential  spirit  of  the  sixteenth  century  .  .  410 

Complaints  of  the  Germans  against  the  church  .  411 

Immobility  of  the  church  .....  412 

Popular  movement — Luther  and  Erasmus  .  .  413 

Official  opposition  to  the  abuses  of  the  church  .  416 

Luther  neglects  the  question  of  celibacy — his 
gradual  progress  .  .  .  .  .  .417 

First  examples  of  sacerdotal  marriage  .  .  .  419 

Approved  by  Carlostadt — Disapproved  by  Luther  419 
Zwingli  demands  sacerdotal  marriage — Luther 
adopts  it  .......  421 

Efforts  of  the  church  to  repress  the  movement  .  423 

Popular  approbation — Protection  in  high  quarters  424 


CONTENTS.  XVII 

A.  D.  PAGE 

1523 — 1524  Emancipation  of  nuns  and  monks  .  .  .  425 

1525  Marriage  of  Luther  ......  425 

Causes  of  popular  acquiescence  in  the  change  .  427 

Extreme  immorality  of  the  clergy  .  .  .  427 

Admitted  by  the  Catholics  to  justify  heresy  .  .  430 

1522 — 1526  Erasmus  advocates  clerical  marriage  .  .  .  432 

Assistance  from  ambition  of  temporal  princes  .  434 

1530  Efforts  at  reunion — Confession  of  Augsburg  .  435 

Failure  of  reconciliation — League  of  Schmalkalden  438 

The  Anabaptists  ......  438 

1532 — 1541  Partial  toleration  —  Difficulties  concerning  the 

Abbey  lands  .......  439 

1548  The  Interim — Sacerdotal  marriage  tolerated  .  441 

1552  The  Reformation  established  by  the  Transaction 

of  Passau  .......  443 

XXVI.— THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 

Conservative  tendencies  of  England  .  .  .  444 

1500 — 1523  John  Colet  and  Sir  Thomas  More  .  .  .  445 

1524  Difficulties  of  the  situation — Wolsey  undertakes 

the  destruction  of  monachism  ....  447 

1528  General  suppression  of  the  smaller  houses  .  .  448 

1532  Henry  VIII.’s  quarrel  with  Rome  .  .  .  449 

1535  General  visitation  of  monasteries,  and  suppression 

of  most  of  them  ......  451 

Popular  opinions — The  Beggars’  Petition  .  .  453 

1536  Popular  discontent — The  Pilgrimage  of  Grace  .  455 

1537 — 1546  Final  suppression  of  the  religious  houses  .  .  456 

Fate  of  their  inmates  ......  460 

1535 — 1541  Irish  monastic  establishments  destroyed  .  .  461 

Henry  still  insists  on  celibacy  ....  461 

Efforts  to  procure  its  relaxation  ....  463 

1537  Uncertainty  of  the  subject  in  the  public  mind  .  465 

1539  Henry’s  firmness — Act  of  the  Six  Articles  .  .  466 

Persecution  of  the  married  clergy  .  .  .  469 

1540  Modification  of  the  Six  Articles  ....  471 

1547  Accession  of  Edward  VI. — Repeal  of  the  Six 

Articles  ........  472 

B 


XV111 


CONTENTS. 


1548—1549 

1552 

1553 

1554 

1555 

1557 

1558 

1559 


1563 


PAftE 

Full  liberty  of  marriage  accorded  to  the  clergy  .  473 

Armed  opposition  of  the  people  ....  474 

Adoption  of  the  Forty-two  Articles  .  .  .475 

Difficulty  of  removing  popular  convictions  .  .  476 

Accession  of  Queen  Mary — Legislation  of  Edward 
repealed  .......  477 

The  married  clergy  separated  and  deprived  .  478 

Suffering  of  the  clergy  in  consequence  .  .  480 

England  reconciled  to  Rome — Church  lands  not 
recalled  ........  482 

Cardinal  Pole’s  Legatine  Constitutions  .  .  483 

More  stringent  legislation  required — Revival  of 
the  old  troubles  ......  485 

Accession  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ....  486 

Delay  in  authorizing  marriage — Uncertainty  of 
the  married  clergy  ......  487 

Elizabeth  yields,  but  imposes  degrading  restric¬ 
tions  on  clerical  marriage  ....  488 

The  Thirty-nine  Articles — Increased  emphasis  of 
permission  to  marry  .....  490 

Elizabeth  maintains  her  prejudices  .  .  .  491 

Disrepute  of  sacerdotal  marriage — Evil  effects  on 
the  Anglican  clergy  .....  494 


XXVII.— CALVINISM. 


1559 — 1640  The  Huguenot  Churches  .....  498 

The  Reformation  in  Scotland  ....  501 

Corruption  of  the  Scottish  church  in  the  sixteenth 
century  ........  501 

1542 — 1559  Efforts  at  internal  reform — their  fruitlessness  .  504 

Marriage  assumed  as  a  matter  of  course  by  the 
Protestants  .......  506 

Temporal  motives  assisting  the  Reformation  .  507 

Poverty  of  the  Scottish  church  establishment  .  508 

Influence  of  celibacy  on  the  struggle  .  .  .  509 

1560  No  formal  recognition  of  clerical  marriage  thought 

necessary  .  .  .  .  .  .  .512 


CONTENTS. 


XXVIII.— THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


A.  D. 

1524—1536 


1542—1547 

1551—1552 

1562 
1536 
1548 

1548—1551 

1560 

1563 
1560 

1563 

1563—1564 

1564 


Efforts  at  internal  reform  ..... 
Universal  demand  for  a  general  council — Con¬ 
voked  at  Mantua  in  1536  .... 

Assembles  at  Trent — it  labors  to  separate,  not  to 
reunite  the  churches  ..... 
Reassembles  at  Trent — is  again  broken  up  . 
Again  assembles  for  the  last  time 
Paul  III.  essays  an  internal  reform  without  result 
Charles  V.  tries  to  reform  the  German  church 
Local  reformatory  synods — their  failure 
Clerical  marriage  demanded  as  a  last  resort 
Clerical  corruption  urged  as  the  reason 
The  French  court  joins  in  the  demand 
The  question  prejudged  .  .  .  .  . 

The  council  makes  celibacy  a  point  of  faith  . 
Attempts  a  reformation  .  .  .  .  . 

The  German  princes  continue  their  efforts  . 
Essays  of  Cassander  and  Wicelius 
Maximilian  II.  renews  the  attempt 
His  requests  peremptorily  rejected 


XXIX.— THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


1566—1572 

1568— 1570 
1565—1597 

1569— 1668 


1560—1624 


Reception  of  the  Council  of  Trent  except  in 
France  ........ 

Pius  V.  endeavors  to  effect  a  reform  . 

Labors  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  at  Milan  . 

Reforms  vainly  attempted  by  Italian  councils 

Condition  of  the  church  in  Central  Europe  . 

Marriage  still  practised  until  1628 

Clerical  immorality  still  a  justification  of  heresy  . 

Condition  of  the  church  in  France 

The  residence  of  women  conceded 

The  church  in  the  Spanish  Colonies 

Abuse  of  the  confessional  .  .  .  .  . 

Abuse  of  the  power  of  absolution 

Influence  of  the  casuistic  spirit  .  .  .  . 


xix 


PAGE 

514 

519 

520 

521 

522 
522 

524 

525 

529 

530 
533 
533 
536 

538 

539 

542 

543 

544 


546 

547 
550 

552 

553 
556 
556 
558 

561 

562 
566 
575 
578 


XX 


CONTENTS. 


XXX.— THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


A.  D. 


1758—1800 

1783 

1760—1787 

1789 

1789—1790 

1791 

1793 


1795—1797 

1801 

1801—1807 


PAGE 

Sacerdotal  marriage  obsolete — Grandier,  Du  Pin, 

Bossuet  ........  581 

The  eighteenth  century — Controversy  reopened  .  582 

Joseph  II.  proposes  to  permit  sacerdotal  marriage  583 

Clerical  immorality  undiminished  .  .  .  585 

%! 

The  French  Revolution  .....  588 

Confiscation  of  church  property — Suppression  of 

monachism  .......  589 

Celibacy  deprived  of  legal  protection — Marriage 
of  priests  .......  590 

Marriage  becomes  a  test  of  good  citizenship  .  .  592 

Persecution  of  the  unmarried  clergy  .  .  .  592 

Resistance  of  the  great  body  of  the  clergy  .  .  594 

Married  clergy  repudiated  by  their  bishops  .  .  595 

Celibacy  restored  by  the  Concordat  .  .  .  595 

Clerical  marriage  continues — Napoleon  decides 
against  it  ......  597 


XXXI.— THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 

1815 — 1883  Vacillating  policy  in  France  as  to  clerical  mar¬ 


riage  .  ......  599 

1821 — 1866  Various  movements  in  favor  of  clerical  marriage  .  601 

Immobility  of  the  church  .....  603 

1878  The  Old  Catholics  adopt  clerical  marriage  .  .  604 

Civil  marriage  laws  opposed  by  the  church  .  .  605 

Celibacy  not  likely  to  be  disturbed  .  .  .  607 

1820 — 1867  Suppression  of  monastic  orders  ....  608 

Vigor  and  improvement  of  modern  monachism  .  611 

Its  influence  in  the  field  of  education  .  .  .  616 

1880  Suppression  of  unauthorized  orders  in  France  .  621 

Influence  of  celibacy  on  clerical  morality  .  .  624 

Its  influence  on  the  social  organization  .  .  638 


NOTE. 

On  Celibacy  as  a  matter  of  faith  under  the  Council 
of  Trent  ....... 


640 


SACERDOTAL  CELIBACY. 


The  Latin  church  is  the  great  fact  which  dominates  the  history  of 
modern  civilization.  All  other  agencies  which  moulded  the  destinies 
of  mediaeval  Europe  were  comparatively  isolated  or  sporadic  in  their 
manifestations.  Thus  in  one  place  we  may  trace  the  beneficent  in¬ 
fluence  of  commerce  at  work,  in  another  the  turbulent  energy  of  the 
rising  Third  Estate ;  the  mortal  contests  of  the  feudal  powers  with 
each  other  and  with  progress  are  waged  in  detached  and  convulsive 
struggles ;  chivalry  casts  only  occasional  and  evanescent  flashes  of 
light  amid  the  darkness  of  military  barbarism  ;  literature  seeks  to 
gain  support  from  any  power  which  will  condescend  to  lend  transi¬ 
tory  aid  to  the  plaything  of  the  moment.  Nowhere  do  we  see 
combined  effort,  nowhere  can  we  detect  a  pervading  impulse,  irre¬ 
spective  of  locality  or  of  circumstance,  save  in  the  imposing  ma¬ 
chinery  of  the  church  establishment.  This  meets  us  at  every  point, 
and  in  every  age,  and  in  every  sphere  of  action.  In  the  dim  soli- 
tude  of  the  cloister,  the  monk  is  training  the  minds  which  are  to 
mould  the  destinies  of  the  period,  while  his  roof  is  the  refuge  of 
the  desolate  and  the  home  of  the  stranger.  In  the  tribunal,  the 
priest  is  wrestling  with  the  baron,  and  is  extending  his  more  humane 
and  equitable  code  over  a  jurisdiction  subjected  to  the  caprices  of 
feudal  or  customary  law,  as  applied  by  a  class  of  ignorant  and  arbi¬ 
trary  tyrants.  In  the  royal  palace,  the  hand  of  the  ecclesiastic, 
visible  or  invisible,  is  guiding  the  helm  of  state,  regulating  the 
policy  of  nations,  and  converting  the  brute  force  of  chivalry  into  the 
supple  instrument  of  his  will.  In  Central  Europe,  lordly  prelates, 
with  the  temporal  power  and  possessions  of  the  highest  princes,  joined 
to  the  exclusive  pretensions  of  the  church,  make  war  and  peace,  and 
are  sovereign  in  all  but  name,  owing  no  allegiance  save  to  Emperors 

2 


18 


THE  CHURCH. 


whom  they  elect  and  Popes  whose  cause  they  share.  Far  above  all, 
the  successor  of  St.  Peter  from  his  pontifical  throne  claims  the  whole 
of  Europe  as  his  empire,  and  dictates  terms  to  kings  who  crouch 
under  his  reproof,  or  are  crushed  in  the  vain  effort  of  rebellion.  At 
the  other  extremity  of  society,  the  humble  minister  of  the  altar,  with 
his  delegated  power  over  heaven  and  hell,  wields  in  cottage  as  in 
castle  an  authority  hardly  less  potent,  and  sways  the  minds  of  the 
faithful  with  his  right  to  implicit  obedience.  Even  art  offers  a 
willing  submission  to  the  universal  mistress,  and  seeks  the  embodi¬ 
ment  of  its  noblest  aspirations  in  the  lofty  poise  of  the  cathedral 
spire,  the  rainbow  glories  of  the  painted  window,  and  the  stately 
rhythm  of  the  solemn  chant. 

This  vast  fabric  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy  presents  one  of  the 
most  curious  problems  which  the  world’s  history  affords.  A  wide 
and  absolute  authority,  deriving  its  force  from  moral  power  alone, 
marshalling  no  legions  of  its  own  in  battle  array,  hut  permeating 
everything  with  its  influence,  walking  unarmed  through  deadly  strife, 
rising  with  renewed  strength  from  every  prostration,  triumphing  alike 
over  the  savage  nature  of  the  barbarian  and  the  enervated  apathy  of 
the  Roman  tributary,  blending  discordant  races  and  jarring  nations 
into  one  great  brotherhood  of  subjection — such  was  the  Papal  hier¬ 
archy,  a  marvel  and  a  mystery.  Well  is  it  personified  in  Gregory 
VII.,  a  fugitive  from  Rome,  without  a  rood  of  ground  to  call  him 
master,  a  rival  Pope  lording  it  in  the  Vatican,  a  triumphant  Emperor 
vowed  to  internecine  strife,  yet  issuing  his  commands  as  sternly  and 
as  proudly  to  prince  and  potentate  as  though  he  were  the  unquestioned 
suzerain  of  Europe,  and  listened  to  as  humbly  by  three-fourths  of 
Christendom.  The  man  wasted  away  in  the  struggle ;  his  death  was 
hut  the  accident  of  time :  the  church  lived  on,  and  marched  to  in¬ 
evitable  victory. 

The  investigations  of  the  curious  can  hardly  be  deemed  misapplied 
in  analyzing  the  elements  of  this  impalpable  but  irresistible  power, 
and  in  examining  the  causes  which  have  enabled  it  to  preserve  such 
unity  of  action  amid  such  diversity  of  environment,  presenting  every¬ 
where  by  turns  a  solid  and  united  front  to  the  opposing  influences  of 
barbarism  and  civilization.  In  detaching  one  of  these  elements  from 
the  group,  and  tracing  out  its  successive  vicissitudes,  I  may  therefore 
be  pardoned  for  thinking  the  subject  of  sufficient  interest  to  warrant 
a  minuteness  of  detail  that  would  otherwise  perhaps  appear  dispro¬ 
portionate. 


THE  CHURCH. 


19 


The  Janizaries  of  the  Porte  were  Christian  children,  recruited  by 
the  most  degrading  tribute  which  tyrannical  ingenuity  has  invented. 
Torn  from  their  homes  in  infancy,  every  tie  severed  that  bound  them 
to  the  world  around  them ;  the  past  a  blank,  the  future  dependent 
solely  upon  the  master  above  them ;  existence  limited  to  the  circle  of 
their  comrades,  among  whom  they  could  rise,  but  whom  they  could 
never  leave ;  such  was  the  corps  which  bore  down  the  bravest  of  the 
Christian  chivalry  and  carried  the  standard  of  the  Prophet  in  triumph 
to  the  walls  of  Vienna.  Mastering  at  length  their  master,  they 
wrung  from  him  the  privilege  of  marriage ;  and  the  class  in  becoming 
hereditary,  with  human  hopes  and  fears  disconnected  with  the  one 
idea  of  their  service,  no  longer  presented  the  same  invincible  phalanx, 
and  at  last  became  terrible  only  to  the  effeminate  denizens  of  the 
seraglio.  The  example  is  instructive,  and  it  affords  grounds  for  the 
assumption  that  the  canon  which  bound  all  the  active  ministers  of 
the  church  to  perpetual  celibacy,  and  thus  created  an  impassable 
barrier  between  them  and  the  outer  world,  was  one  of  the  efficient 
instruments  in  creating  and  consolidating  both  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  power  of  the  Roman  hierarchy. 


I 


I. 


ASCETICISM. 


The  most  striking  contrast  between  the  Mosaic  Dispensation  and 
the  Law  of  Christ  is  the  materialism  of  the  one,  and  the  pure  spirit¬ 
ualism  of  the  other.  The  Hebrew  prophet  threatens  worldly  punish¬ 
ments,  and  promises  fleshly  rewards:  the  Son  of  Man  teaches  us  to 
contemn  the  treasures  of  this  life,  and  directs  all  our  fears  and  aspi¬ 
rations  towards  eternity.  The  exaggeration  of  these  teachings  by  the 
zeal  of  fervent  disciples  led  to  the  ascetic  efforts  to  subjugate  nature, 
which  present  so  curious  a  feature  in  religious  history,  and  of  which 
those  concerning  the  relations  of  the  sexes  form  the  subject  of  our 
consideration. 

This  special  phase  of  asceticism  was  altogether  foreign  to  the  tra¬ 
ditions  of  Israel,  averse  as  they  were  to  all  restrictions  upon  the  full 
physical  development  of  man.  Enjoying,  apparently,  no  conception 
of  a  future  existence,  the  earlier  Hebrews  had  no  incentive  to  sacri¬ 
fice  the  pleasures  of  the  world  for  those  of  a  Heaven  of  which  they 
knew  nothing;  nor  was  the  gross  polytheism,  which  the  monotheistic 
prophets  combated,  of  a  nature  to  lead  to  ascetic  practices.  The 
worship  of  Ashera — probably  identical  with  the  Babylonian  Beltis  or 
Mylitta — undoubtedly  consecrated  the  sacrifice  of  chastity  as  a  relig¬ 
ious  rite,  and  those  who  revered  the  goddess  of  fertility  as  one  of  the 
supreme  deities  were  not  likely  to  impose  any  restrictions  on  the  exer¬ 
cise  of  her  powers.1  We  see,  indeed,  in  the  story  of  Judah  and  Tamar, 
and  in  the  lamentation  of  the  daughter  of  Jephthah,  that  virginity 
was  regarded  almost  as  a  disgrace,  and  that  child-bearing  was  con¬ 
sidered  the  noblest  function  of  woman ;  while  the  institution  of  levirate 
marriage  shows  an  importance  attributed  to  descendants  in  the  male 


1  Amos  ii.  7. —  Deut.  xxiii.  18. — 
Micah  i.  7. — Herod.  I.  199. — Cf.  Kue- 
nen,  Religion  of  Israel,  I.  92-3,  368. 


— Rawlinson’s  Essay  X.  on  Herod.  I. — 
Luciani  de  Syria  Dea  vi. 


22 


ASCETICISM. 


line  as  marked  as  among  the  Hindu  Arya.  The  hereditary  character 
of  the  priesthood,  moreover,  both  as  vested  in  the  original  Levites,  and 
the  later  Tsadukim  and  Baithusin,  indicates  conclusively  that  even 
among  the  orthodox  no  special  sanctity  attached  to  continence,  and  that 
the  temporary  abstinence  from  women  required  of  those  who  handled 
the  hallowed  articles  of  the  altar  (I.  Samuel  xxi.  4-5)  was  simply  a 
distinction  drawn  between  the  sacerdotal  class  and  the  laity,  for  in  the 
elaborate  instructions  as  to  uncleanness,  there  is  no  allusion  made  to 
sexual  indulgence,  though  the  priest  who  had  partaken  of  wine  was 
forbidden  to  enter  the  Tabernacle,  and  defilement  arising  from  contact 
with  the  dead  was  a  disability  ( Levit .  x .,  xxi.,  xxii.),1  while  the  highest 
blessing  that  could  be  promised  as  a  reward  for  obedience  to  God 
was  that  “there  shall  not  be  male  or  female  barren  among  you” 
{Dent.  vii.  14).  In  fact,  the  only  manifestation  of  asceticism  as  a  re¬ 
ligious  ordinance,  prior  to  the  Second  Temple,  is  seen  in  the  vow  of 
the  Nazirites,  which  consisted  merely  in  allowing  the  hair  to  remain 
unshorn,  in  the  abstinence  from  wine  and  in  avoiding  the  pollution 
arising  from  contact  with  the  dead.  Slender  as  were  these  restric¬ 
tions,  the  ordinary  term  of  a  Nazirate  was  only  thirty  days,  though 
it  might  be  assumed  for  life,  as  in  the  cases  of  Samson  and  Samuel ; 
and  the  vows  for  long  terms  were  deemed  sufficiently  pleasing  to  God 
to  serve  as  means  of  propitiation,  as  in  the  case  of  Hannah,  who  thus 
secured  her  offspring  Samuel,  and  in  that  of  Helena,  Queen  of  Adia- 
bene,  who  vowed  a  Nazirate  of  seven  years  if  her  son  Izaces  should 
return  in  safety  from  a  campaign.2  The  few  references  to  the  custom 
in  Scripture,  however,  show  that  it  was  little  used,  and  that  it  exer¬ 
cised  no  visible  influence  over  social  life  during  the  earlier  periods. 

When  the  conquests  of  Cyrus  released  the  Hebrews  from  captivity, 
the  close  relations  established  with  the  Persians  wrought  no  change 
in  this  aspect  of  the  Jewish  faith.  Mazdeism,  in  fact,  was  a  religion 
so  wholesome  and  practical  in  its  character  that  asceticism  could  find 
little  place  among  its  prescribed  observances,  and  the  strict  main¬ 
tenance  of  its  priesthood  in  certain  families  who  transmitted  their 


1  When  the  Church  assumed  that 
marriage  was  incompatible  with  the 
ministry  of  the  altar,  it  was  somewhat 
puzzled  to  reconcile  the  hereditary  char¬ 
acter  of  the  high  priesthood  with  the 
morning  and  evening  sacrifice  required 
of  the  high  priest  (Exod.  xxx.  7-8). 
For  ingenious  special  pleading  to  ex¬ 


plain  this  away,  see  St.  Augustin,  Qusestt. 
in  Pentateuch,  m.lxxxii.  and  Retractt. 
ii.  lv.  2. 

2  Num.  vi.  2-21. — Judges  xm-xvi. 
— I.  Sam.  i.  11. — Lament,  iv.  7-8. — 
Amos  ii.  11-12. — I.  Macc.  III.  49. — 
Mishna.  Tract.  Nazir. 


INFLUENCE  OF  INDIA. 


23 


sacred  lore  from  father  to  son,  shows  that  no  restrictions  were  placed 
upon  the  ministers  of  Hormadz,  or  athravas,1  though  in  the  later 
period  of  the  Achaemenian  empire,  after  the  purity  of  ancient  Maz- 
deism  had  become  corrupted,  the  priestesses  of  the  Sun  were  required 
to  observe  chastity,  without  necessarily  being  virgins.2  With  the  con¬ 
quests  of  Alexander,  however,  J udaism  was  exposed  to  new  influences, 
and  was  brought  into  relation  at  once  with  Grecian  thought  and  with 
the  subtle  mysticism  of  India,  wTith  which  intercourse  became  frequent 
under  the  Greek  empire.  Beyond  the  Indus  the  Sankhya  philosophy 
was  already  venerable,  which  taught  the  nothingness  of  life,  and  that 
the  supreme  good  consisted  in  the  absolute  victory  over  all  human 
wants  and  desires.3  Already  Buddha  had  reduced  this  philosophy 
into  a  system  of  religion,  the  professors  of  which  were  bound  to 
chastity — a  rule  impossible  of  observance  by  the  world  at  large,  but 
wThich  became  obligatory  upon  its  innumerable  priests  and  monks, 
when  it  spread  and  established  itself  as  a  church,  thus  furnishing  the 
prototype  which  was  subsequently  copied  by  Roman  Christianity.4 
Already  Brahmanism  had  invented  the  classes  of  Yanaprasthas, 
Sannyasis,  and  others — ascetics  whose  practices  of  self-mortification 
anticipated  and  excelled  all  that  is  related  of  Christian  Antonys  and 
Simeons — although  the  ancestor  worship  which  required  every  man 
to  provide  descendants  who  should  keep  alive  the  Sraddha  in  honor  of 
the  Pitris  of  his  forefathers  postponed  the  entrance  into  the  life  of 
the  anchorite  until  after  he  should  have  fulfilled  his  parental  duties:5 
and  wTe  know  from  the  references  in  the  Greek  writers  to  the  Hindu 
gymnosophists  how  great  an  impression  these  customs  had  made  upon 
those  to  wThom  they  were  a  novelty.6  Already  the  Yoga  system  had 
been  framed,  wdiereby  absorption  into  the  Godhead  vras  to  be  obtained 
by  religious  mendicancy,  penances,  mortifications,  and  the  severest 


1  Yasht-Kordali  10. — Bahrain  Yasht 
46. — Sad-der,  Porta  C. — Philost.  deVit. 
Sophistt.  I.  10. 

2  Justin.  Historiar.  x.  ii. 

3  Kapila’s  Aphorisms  I.  1  (Ballan- 
tyne’s  Translation). — Sankhya  Karika 
xlv. ,  lxvi. ,  lxviii.  (Colebrook  & 
Wilson’s  Translation). — For  the  inter¬ 
course  between  India  and  the  West,  see 
A.  Weber,  “Die  Verbindungen  In- 
diens,”  etc.,  in  “  Indische  Skizzen.” 

4  Surangama  Sutra  (Beal’s  Catena,  pp. 

348-9). — Davids  and  Oldenberg’s  Vin- 
aya  Texts,  Part  I.  p.  4.  —  Hodgson’s 

Essays  on  the  Languages,  etc.,  of  Nepal 


and  Tibet,  pp.  63,  68-70.  —  Hardy’s 
Eastern  Monachism,  pp.  50  sqq. 

5  Manava  Dharma  Sastra  iv.  257 ; 
vi.  1-81.  Yet  the  Sutta  Nipata,  a  Bud¬ 
dhist  scripture  of  unquestioned  anti¬ 
quity,  states  that  of  old  the  Brahmans 
practised  celibacy  up  to  the  forty-eighth 
year.  (Sir  M.  C.  Swamy’s  Translation, 
p.  81.)  Cf.  Strabon.  Lib.  xv.,  and 
Clement.  Alexand.  Stromat.  Lib.  III. 

6  See  Bisse’s  edition  of  Palladius  de 
Gentibus  Indiae. — Diog.  Laert.  Prooem. 
— Philost.  deVit.  Apollon.  Tyan. — Por- 
phyr.  de  Abstinent,  iv.  17. 


24 


ASCETICISM. 


severance  of  self  from  all  external  surroundings.1  All  this  had  been 
founded  on  the  primaeval  doctrine  of  the  Vedas  with  respect  to  the 
virtue  of  Tapas ,  or  austere  religious  abstraction,  to  which  the  most 
extravagant  powers  were  attributed,  conferring  upon  its  votaries  the 
authority  of  gods.2  With  all  the  absurdities  of  these  beliefs  and 
practices,  they  yet  sprang  from  a  profound  conviction  of  the  supe¬ 
riority  of  the  spiritual  side  of  man’s  nature,  and  if  their  theory  of 
the  nothingness  of  mortal  existence  was  exaggerated,  yet  they  tended 
to  elevate  the  soul,  at  the  expense,  it  must  be  confessed,  of  a  regard 
to  the  duties  which  man  owes  to  society. 

The  influences  arising  from  this  system  of  religious  philosophy,  so 
novel  to  the  Semitic  races,  were  tardy  is  making  themselves  felt  upon 
the  Hebrews,  but  they  became  gradually  apparent.  The  doctrine  of 
a  future  life  with  reAvards  and  punishments,  doubtless  derived  from 
Chaldean  and  Mazdean  sources  during  the  Captivity  and  under  the 
Persian  Empire,  slowly  made  its  way,  and  though  opposed  by  the 
aristocratic  conservative  party  in  power — the  Tsadukim  or  Sadducees 
(descendants  of  Zadoc,  or  just  men) — it  became  one  of  the  distinctive 
dogmas  of  the  Beth  Sopherim  or  House  of  Scribes,  composed  of  re¬ 
ligious  teachers,  trained  in  all  the  learning  of  the  day,  sprung  from 
the  people,  and  eager  to  maintain  their  nationality  against  the  tem¬ 
porizing  policy  of  their  rulers.3  At  the  breaking  out  of  the  Macca- 
bean  revolt  against  Antiochus  Epiphanes  we  find  the  nation  divided 
into  two  factions,  the  Sadducees,  disposed  rather  to  submit  to  the 
Hellenizing  tyranny  of  Antioch,  and  the  Chassidim  (the  Assideans  of 
the  Authorized  Version),  democratic  reformers,  ready  for  innovation 
and  prepared  to  die  in  defence  of  their  faith.  In  the  triumph  of 
the  Hasmonean  revolution  they  obtained  control  of  the  state,  and 
in  the  development  of  the  Oral  Law  by  the  scribes,  supplementing 


1  A.  Weber,  Hist.  Ind.  Lit.,  pp.  163, 
237-9. — Wilson’s  Vishnu  Purana,  I. 
164. — Garrett’s  Class.  Diet.  India,  p. 
753. 

2  Rig  Veda,  VIII.  vm.  48  (Langlois’ 
Translation).  —  Muir’s  Sanskrit  Texts, 
IV.  160  sqq. — Harivansa  Lect.  xxxn. 
—  Hitopadesa  (Lancereau’s  Transla¬ 
tion,  pp.  178-9,  and  note  to  p.  160). 
The  same  follietf  were  common  to  Bud¬ 
dhism.  See  Fah-Hian  (Beal’s  Bud¬ 
dhist  Pilgrims,  pp.  101-2). — Eitel’s 

Handbook  of  Chinese  Buddhism,  pp. 
33,  76. — Rogers’s  Buddaghosha’s  Para¬ 
bles,  p.  59. — How  nearly  Christian  ex¬ 


travagance  reached  these  altitudes  may 
be  seen  by  reference  to  the  Umbilicani 
or  Quietist  monks  of  Mt.  Athos,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  who  became  suf¬ 
fused  with  divine  light  after  prolonged 
contemplation  of  their  navels  (Basnage, 
in  Canisii  Thes.  Monument.  Eccles.  IV. 
366,  sqq.  —  Dupin,  Bibl.  des  Auteurs 
Eccles.  XI.  96. — Beal’s  Catena,  p. 
i  151). 

3  A  very  good  exposition  of  the 
Pharisaic  revolution  will  be  found  in 
Cohen,  Les  Pharisiens,  2  vols.  8vo., 
Paris,  1877. 


THE  ESSENES. 


25 


the  Torah  or  Written  Law,  they  engrafted  permanently  their  doc¬ 
trines  upon  the  ancestral  belief.  With  the  tenet  of  spiritual  immor¬ 
tality,  there  followed  as  a  necessary  consequence  the  subordination  of 
the  present  existence  to  life  hereafter,  which  is  the  direct  incentive  to 
asceticism.  The  religious  exaltation  of  the  stormy  period  which  in¬ 
tervened  between  the  liberation  from  Antioch  and  the  subjugation  to 
Rome  afforded  a  favorable  soil  for  the  growth  of  this  tendency,  and 
rendered  the  minds  of  the  devout  accessible  to  the  influences  both  of 
Eastern  and  of  Western  speculation.  How  powerful  eventually 
became  the  latter  upon  the  Alexandrian  Jews  may  be  estimated  from 
the  mysticism  of  Philo. 

With  their  triumph  over  Antioch,  the  name  of  the  Chassidim  dis¬ 
appears  as  that  of  an  organized  party,  and  in  its  place  we  find  those 
of  two  factions  or  sects  —  the  Perushim  (Pharisees)  or  Separatists, 
who  maintained  an  active  warfare,  temporal  and  theological,  with  the 
Sadducees,  and  the  Essenes,  mystics,  who  bound  themselves  by  vows, 
generally  including  the  Nazirate,  and  withdrew  from  active  life  for 
the  benefit  of  spiritual  growth  and  meditation. 

The  Essenes  cultivated  the  soil  and  sometimes  even  lived  in  cities, 
hut  often  dwelt  as  anchorites,  using  no  artificial  textures  as  clothing, 
and  no  food  save  what  was  spontaneously  produced.  They  mostly 
practised  daily  ablutions  and  admitted  neophytes  to  their  society  by 
the  rite  of  baptism  after  a  novitiate  of  a  year,  followed  by  two  years 
of  probation.  Among  those  who  did  not  live  as  hermits,  property 
was  held  in  common,  and  marriage  was  abstained  from,  and  it  is  to 
this  latter  practice  doubtless  that  reference  was  made  by  Christ  in 
the  text  “  There  be  eunuchs  which  have  made  themselves  eunuchs  for 
the  kingdom  of  heaven’s  sake.”  The  Essenes  enjoyed  high  consid¬ 
eration  among  the  people;  their  teachings  were  listened  to  with 
respect,  and  they  were  regarded  as  especially  favored  with  the  gifts 
of  divination  and  prophecy.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  John  the 
Baptist  was  an  Essene;  James  of  Jerusalem,  brother  of  Jesus,  was  a 
Nazirite  and  probably  an  Essene,  and  Christ  himself  may  reasonably 
be  regarded  as  trained  in  the  principles  of  the  sect.  His  tendencies 
all  lay  in  that  direction,  and  it  is  observable  that  while  he  is  un¬ 
sparing  in  his  denunciations  of  the  Scribes,  and  Pharisees,  and  Sad¬ 
ducees,  he  never  utters  a  word  of  condemnation  of  the  Essenes.1 


1  Josephi  Yit.  2. — Ejusd.  Antiq.  xv. 
x.  5;  xvii.  xiii.  3;  xvm.  i.  5. — 
Ejusd.  Bell.  Jud.  n.  viii.  2,  3,  4,  5,  7, 


12. — Euseb.  H.  E.  n.  23,  ex  Hegesippo. 
— Hippol.  Kefut.  Omn.  Haeres.  ix.  xiii.— 
xxii. —  Philastr.  Lib.  de  Haeres.  ix. 


26 


ASCETICISM. 


It  is  thus  easy  to  understand  the  refined  spirituality  of  Christ's 
teachings,  and  the  urgency  with  which  he  called  the  attention  of 
man  from  the  gross  temptations  of  earth  to  the  higher  things  which 
should  fit  him  for  the  inheritance  of  eternal  life.  Yet  his  profound 
wisdom  led  him  to  forbear  from  enjoining  even  the  asceticism  of 
the  Essen es.  He  allowed  a  moderate  enjoyment  of  the  gifts  of  the 
Creator;  and  when  he  sternly  rebuked  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees 
for  imposing,  in  their  development  of  the  Oral  Law,  burdens  upon 
men  not  easily  to  be  borne  by  the  weakness  of  human  nature,  he 
was  far  indeed  from  seeking  to  render  obligatory,  or  even  to  recom¬ 
mend,  practices  which  only  the  fervor  of  fanaticism  could  render 
endurable.  No  teacher  before  him  had  ventured  to  form  so  lofty  a 
conception  of  the  marriage-tie.  It  was  an  institution  of  God  himself 
whereby  man  and  wife  became  one  flesh.  “  What  therefore  God  hath 
joined  together  let  not  man  put  asunder;  ”  and  though  he  refrained 
from  condemning  abstention  from  wedlock,  he  regarded  it  as  possible 
only  to  those  whose  exceptional  exaltation  of  temperament  might 
enable  them  to  overcome  the  instincts  and  passions  of  humanity.1 

'When  the  broad  proselyting  views  and  untiring  energy  of  Paul, 
the  apostle  of  the  Gentiles,  were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  little 
circle  of  mourning  disciples,  it  was  inevitable  that  a  rupture  should 
take  place.  No  one  in  the  slightest  degree  familiar  with  the  spirit 
of  Judaism  at  that  day  can  have  difficulty  in  understanding  how 
those  who  still  regarded  themselves  as  Jews,  who  looked  upon  their 
martyr,  not  as  the  Son  of  God,  but,  in  the  words  of  Peter,  as  “  Jesus 
of  Nazareth,  a  man  approved  of  God  among  you,  by  miracles  and 
wonders  and  signs  which  God  did  by  him  in  the  midst  of  you,”  and 
who  held,  as  is  urged  in  the  Epistle  of  James,  firmly  to  their  Master’s 
injunction  to  preserve  every  jot  and  tittle  of  the  Law,  should  regard 
with  growing  distrust  and  distaste  the  activity  of  the  Pharisee  Paul, 
who,  like  other  Pharisees,  was  ready  to  encompass  land  and  sea  to 
gain  one  proselyte,  and,  more  than  this,  was  prepared  to  throw  down 
the  exclusive  barriers  of  the  Law  in  order  to  invite  all  mankind  to 
share  in  the  glad  tidings  of  Salvation.2  The  division  came  in  time, 
and  as  the  Gentile  church  spread  and  flourished,  it  stigmatized  as 


— Matt.  xix.  12. — Porphyr.  de  Absti¬ 
nent.  iv.  11-13. — Philo  probably  ob¬ 
tained  from  the  Essenes  the  ideal  which 
he  embodied  in  his  account  of  the  sup¬ 
posititious  Therapeutic  (Philon.  Lib.  de 
Vit.  Contempt  pp.  090-1,  Ed.  1013). 


1  Matt,  xxxiii.  3. — Luc.  xi.  46. — Matt, 
xi.  4-10. 

2  Acts  ii.  44-0. — James  ii.  10. — Matt, 
v.  17-19;  xxiii.  15.— Cf.  Galat.  ii. 


PAULINE  CHRISTIANITY. 


27 


heretics  those  who  adhered  to  the  simple  monotheistic  reformed 
Judaism  which  Christ  had  taught.  These  became  known  as  the 
Ebionim,  or  Poor  Men,  Essenes,  and  others,  who  followed  Christ  as 
a  prophet  inspired  by  God,  who  accepted  all  of  the  apostles  save 
Paul,  whom  they  regarded  as  a  transgressor  of  the  Law,  holding 
their  property  in  common,  honoring  virginity  rather  than  marriage, 
but  uttering  no  precept  upon  the  subject,  and  observing  the  Written 
Law  with  rigid  accuracy.  They  maintained  a  quiet  existence  for 
four  centuries,  making  no  progress,  but  exciting  no  antagonism  save 
on  the  part  of  vituperative  heresiologists,  whose  denunciations,  how¬ 
ever,  contain  no  rational  grounds  for  regarding  them  otherwise  than 
as  the  successors  of  the  original  followers  of  Christ.1 

Meanwhile,  Pauline  Christianity,  launched  on  the  tumultuous  exist¬ 
ence  of  the  Gentile  world,  had  adapted  itself  to  the  passions  and 
ambitions  of  men,  had  availed  itself  both  of  their  strength  and  of 
their  weakness,  and  had  become  a  very  different  creed  from  that 
which  had  been  taught  around  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  had  seen  its 
teacher  expiate  on  Calvary  his  revolt  against  the  Oral  Law.  In  its 
gradual  transformation  through  the  ages,  from  Essenic  and  Ebionic 
simplicity  to  the  magnificent  sacerdotalism  of  the  Innocents  and 
Gregories,  it  has  felt  itself  bound  to  find  or  make,  in  its  earliest 
records,  some  precedent  for  every  innovation,  and  accordingly  its 
ardent  polemics  in  modern  times  have  endeavored  to  prove  that  the 
celibacy  of  its  ministers  was,  if  not  absolutely  ordained,  at  least 
practised  from  the  earliest  period.  Much  unnecessary  logic  and 
argument  have  been  spent  upon  this  subject  since  the  demand  which 
arose  for  clerical  marriage  at  the  Reformation  forced  the  champions 
of  the  church  to  find  scriptural  authority  for  the  canon  which  enjoins 
celibacy.  The  fact  is  that  prior  to  the  sixteenth  century  the  fathers 
of  the  church  had  no  scruple  in  admitting  that  in  primitive  times  the 
canon  had  no  existence  and  the  custom  was  not  observed.  The 
reader  may  therefore  well  be  spared  a  disquisition  upon  a  matter  which 
may  be  held  to  be  self-evident,  and  be  contented  with  a  brief  reference 
to  some  of  the  authorities  of  the  church  who,  prior  to  the  Reformation, 


1  Irenaei  contra  Haeres.  i.  xxvi.  2. — 
Hippol.  Refut.  Omn.  Haeres.  vii.  xxii. 
— Tertullii  Praescript.  xlvii. — Euseb.  H. 
E.  hi.  xxvii. — Epiphan.  Panar.  Haeres. 
xxx. — Hieron.  Comment,  in  Matt.  n. 
xii.  2. — It  is  possible  that  “  them  which 
say  they  are  Jews  and  are  not,”  con¬ 


demned  in  Rev.  ii.  9 ;  iii.  9,  were 
Ebionites.  The  Talmud  represents  the 
Jewish  doctors,  after  the  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  as  consorting  familiarly  and 
disputing  with  the  Ebionite  Christians 
(Cohen,  II.  238-9). 


28 


ASCETICISM. 


admitted  that  in  primitive  times  marriage  was  freely  permitted  to  the 
ministers  of  Christ. 

No  doctor  of  the  church  did  more  than  St.  Jerome  to  impose  the 
rule  of  celibacy  on  its  members,  yet  even  he  admits  that  at  the  be¬ 
ginning  there  was  no  absolute  injunction  to  that  effect ;  and  he  en¬ 
deavors  to  apologize  for  the  admission  by  arguing  that  infants  must 
be  nourished  with  milk  and  not  with  solid  food.1  In  the  middle  of 
the  eleventh  century,  during  the  controversy  between  Rome  and  Con¬ 
stantinople,  Rome  had  no  scruple  in  admitting  that  the  celebrated 
text  of  St.  Paul  (/.  Cor.  ix.  5)  meant  that  the  apostles  were  married, 
though  subsequent  commentators  have  exhausted  so  much  ingenuity 
in  explaining  it  away.2  A  century  later  Gratian,  the  most  learned 
canonist  of  his  time,  in  the  “Decretum,”  undertaken  at  the  request 
of  the  papal  court,  which  has  ever  since  maintained  its  position  as 
the  standard  of  the  canon  law,  felt  no  hesitation  in  admitting  that,  be¬ 
fore  the  adoption  of  the  canon,  marriage  was  everywhere  undisturbed 
among  those  in  orders,  as  it  continued  to  be  in  the  Greek  church.3 
The  reputation  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  as  a  theologian  was  as  un¬ 
questioned  as  that  of  Gratian  as  a  canonist,  and  the  Angelic  Doctor 
admitted  as  freely  as  the  canon  lawyer  that  compulsory  celibacy  was 
an  innovation  on  the  rules  of  the  primitive  church,  which  he  endeavors 
to  explain  by  an  argument  contradictory  to  that  of  St.  Jerome,  for 
he  says  that  the  greater  sanctity  of  the  earlier  Christians  rendered 
them  superior  to  the  asceticism  requisite  to  the  purity  of  a  degenerate 
age,  even  as  no  modern  warrior  could  emulate  the  exploit  of  Samson 
in  throwing  himself  amid  a  hostile  army  with  no  other  weapon  than 
a  jaw-bone.  He  even  admits,  what  other  authorities  have  denied, 
that  Christ  required  no  separation  between  St.  Peter  and  his  wife.4 
There  were  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  few  more 
learned  men  than  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  whose  orthodoxy  was  un¬ 
questioned,  and  who,  as  Archdeacon  of  St.  David’s,  vigorously  sought 
to  enforce  the  rule  of  continence  upon  his  recalcitrant  clergy.  Yet 
in  a  strenuous  exhortation  to  them  to  mend  the  error  of  their  ways 
in  this  respect,  he  admits  that  clerical  celibacy  has  no  scriptural  or 
apostolic  warrant.5  That  this  was  universally  admitted  at  the  time 
is  manifested  by  Alfonso  the  Wise,  of  Castile,  about  the  middle  of 


1  Hieron.  adv.  Jovin.  i.  34. 

2  Gratiani  Decret.  P.  I.  Dist.  xxxi. 
c.  xi. 

3  Gratiani  Comment,  in  Can.  13. 


Dist.  lvi.  See  also  Comment,  in  Dist. 
XXXI. 

4  Summa  n.  ii.  Qusest.  186  Art.  4  §  3. 
6  Gemma  Eccles.  n.  vi. 


ADMISSION  OF  SACERDOTAL  MARRIAGE. 


29 


the  thirteenth  century,  asserting  the  fact  in  the  most  positive  manner, 
while  forbidding  marriage  to  the  priests  of  his  dominions,  in  the  code 
known  as  Las  Siete  Partidas.1 

Gerson,  indeed,  who,  like  most  of  the  ecclesiastics  of  his  time,  at¬ 
tributes  to  the  Council  of  Nicaea  the  introduction  of  celibacy,  seems 
inclined  to  justify  the  change  assumed  to  have  been  then  made,  by 
alluding  to  the  forged  donation  of  Constantine.  That  the  temporal¬ 
ities  of  the  church  could  only  be  entrusted  to  men  cut  off  from  family 
ties  was  an  axiom  in  his  day,  and  though  he  does  not  himself  draw  the 
conclusion,  he  clearly  regarded  the  supposed  accession  to  the  landed 
estates  of  the  church  as  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  prohibition 
of  marriage  to  its  ministers  in  the  fourth  century.2  Shortly  after¬ 
wards,  Pius  II.,  one  of  the  most  learned  of  the  popes,  had  no  scruple 
in  admitting  that  the  primitive  church  was  administered  by  a  married 
clergy.3  Just  before  the  Reformation,  Geoffroi  Boussard,  dean  of 
the  faculty  of  theology  of  Paris,  published,  in  1505,  a  dissertation  on 
priestly  continence,  in  which  he  positively  assumes,  as  the  basis  of 
his  argument,  that  the  use  of  marriage  was  universally  permitted  to 
those  in  holy  orders,  from  the  time  of  Christ  to  that  of  Siricius  and 
Innocent  I. ;  and  this  may  be  assumed  to  be  the  opinion  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  for  Boussard  formally  submitted  his  tract  to  that 
body,  and  its  approbation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  he  was  sub¬ 
sequently  elevated  to  its  chancellorship,  and  was  sent  as  its  delegate 
to  the  Council  of  Pisa.4 

Even  after  the  Reformation,  unexceptionable  orthodox  authority 
is  found  to  the  same  effect.  In  1564,  Pius  IV.  admitted  it  in  an 
epistle  to  the  German  princes,  and  explained  it  by  the  necessity  of 
the  times.5  Zaccaria,  probably  the  most  learned  of  Catholic  polemics 
on  the  subject,  endeavors  to  reconcile  his  belief  in  the  Apostolic 
origin  of  clerical  celibacy  with  the  indubitable  practice  of  the  primi¬ 
tive  church,  by  suggesting  that  while  the  Apostles  commanded  the 


1  Casar  solien  todos  los  clerigos  antig- 
uamiente  en  el  comienzo  de  la  nuestra 
ley,  segunt  lo  facien  en  la  ley  vieja  de 
los  judios  :  mas  despues  deso  los  clerigos 
de  occidente,  que  obedecieron  siempre  a 
la  eglesia  de  Roma,  accordaron  de  vevir 
en  castidat. — Las  Siete  Partidas  i.  vi.  39. 

2  Dial.  Sophias  et  Naturae  Act.  4. 

3  Non  erravit  ecclesia  primitiva  quae 

sacerdotibus  permisit  uxores. — ASnei 

Sylvii  Epist.  cxxx.  (ap.  Zaccaria, 


Storia  Polemica  del  Celibato  Sacro, 
Roma,  1775,  p.  354). 

4  Boussard’s  tract  “  De  continentia 
Sacerdotum  sub  hue  quaestione  nova. 
Utrum  papa  possit  cum  sacerdote  dis- 
pensare  ut  nubat,”  was  several  times 
reprinted.  The  edition  before  me  is 
that  of  Niirnberg,  1510. 

5  Le  Plat,  Concil.  Trident.  Monument. 
VI.  337. 


30 


ASCETICISM. 


observance  of  the  rule  by  the  clergy  in  general,  yet  in  special  cases 
they  discreetly  dispensed  with  it  to  avoid  greater  scandals ;  and  that 
with  the  gradual  increase  of  these  dispensations  the  clergy  came  at 
length  to  assume  the  indulgence  as  a  matter  of  course  without  asking 
for  special  licenses.1  More  logical  is  the  argument  brought  forward 
by  a  priest  named  Taillard,  resisting  in  1842  some  efforts  made  to 
introduce  priestly  marriage  in  Prussian  Poland.  He  coolly  reasons 
that  if  celibacy  was  not  enforced  in  the  primitive  church,  it  ought  to 
have  been — “  if  the  celibacy  of  the  priesthood  be  not  from  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  Christianity,  it  ought  to  have  been  there,  for,  as  our  holy 
religion  comes  from  God,  it  should  contain  in  itself  all  the  means 
possible  to  elevate  the  nations  to  the  highest  point  of  liberty  and 
happiness.’2 


1  Zaccaria,  op.  cit.  p.  65.  It  is  curi¬ 
ous  to  observe  how,  in  his  anxiety  to 
explain  the  neglect  of  the  church  for 
these  assumed  Apostolic  commands, 
Zaccaria  proceeds  to  show  that  the  or¬ 
ders  of  the  Apostles  were  never  received 


as  absolutely  binding,  as  for  instance  in 
regard  to  the  prohibition  of  eating  blood 
and  animals  dead  through  strangulation 
(lb.  p.  116). 

2  Taillard,  Le  Celibat  des  Pretres, 
Gnesen,  1842. 


II. 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


Although  no  thought  existed  in  the  mind  of  Paul,  and  of  his  co¬ 
laborers  in  founding  the  church  of  the  Gentiles,  of  prohibiting  to  his 
disciples  the  institution  of  marriage,  there  was  a  distinct  flavor  of 
asceticism  in  some  of  his  teachings,  which  might  readily  serve  as  a 
warrant  to  those  whose  zeal  was  greater  than  their  discretion,  to 
mortify  the  flesh  in  this  as  in  other  ways.  The  Apostle,  while 
admitting  that  the  Lord  had  forbidden  the  separation  of  husband  and 
wife,  said  of  the  unmarried  and  widowers: 

“It  is  good  for  them  if  they  abide  even  as  I.  But  if  they  cannot  contain  let 
them  marry,  for  it  is  better  to  marry  than  to  burn.” 

And  though  in  one  passage  he  seems  to  indicate  a  belief  that 
woman  could  only  be  saved  by  maternity  from  the  punishment  incurred 
by  the  disobedience  of  Eve,  in  another  he  formally  declares  that  “he 
that  giveth  her  in  marriage  doeth  well ;  but  he  that  giveth  her  not  in 
marriage  doeth  better,”  thus  showing  a  marked  preference  for  the 
celibate  state,  in  which  the  devout  could  give  themselves  up  wholly 
to  the  service  of  the  Lord.1 

The  Apostle’s  discussion  of  these  subjects  shows  that  already  there 
had  commenced  a  strong  ascetic  movement,  raising  questions  which 
he  found  hard  to  answer,  without  on  the  one  hand  repressing  the 
ardor  of  serviceable  disciples,  and  on  the  other,  imposing  burdens  on 
neophytes  too  grievous  to  be  borne.  He  foresaw  that  the  former 
would  soon  run  beyond  the  bounds  of  reason,  and  he  condemned  in 
advance  the  heresies  which  should  forbid  marriage;2  but  that  the 
tendency  of  the  faithful  lay  in  that  direction  was  inevitable.  In 
those  times,  no  one  would  join  the  infant  church  who  did  not  regard 
the  things  of  earth  as  vile  in  comparison  with  the  priceless  treasures 


1  I.  Cor.  vii.  8-9,  38.— I.  Tim.  ii.  14-15. 


2  I.  Tim.  iv.  3. 


32 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


of  heaven,  and  the  more  fervent  the  conviction,  the  more  it  was  apt 
to  find  expression  in  mortifying  the  flesh  and  purchasing  salvation  by 
the  sacrifice  of  passions  and  affections.  Such  especially  would  be 
the  tendency  of  the  stronger  natures  which  lead  their  fellows;  and 
the  admiration  of  the  multitude  for  their  superior  virtue  and  fortitude 
would  soon  invest  them  with  a  reputation  for  holiness  which  would 
render  them  doubly  influential. 

There  was  much,  indeed,  in  the  teaching  of  the  church,  and  in  its 
relations  with  the  Gentiles,  to  promote  and  strengthen  this  tendency. 
The  world  into  which  Christianity  was  born  was  hopelessly  corrupt. 
Licentiousness,  probably,  has  never  been  more  defiant  than  amid  the 
splendors  of  the  early  Empire.  The  gossip  of  Suetonius  and  the 
denunciations  of  Juvenal  depict  a  society  in  which  purity  was  scarce 
understood,  and  in  which  unchastity  was  no  sin  and  hardly  even  a 
reproach.  To  reclaim  such  a  population  needed  a  new  system  of 
morality,  and  it  is  observable  that  in  the  New  Testament  particular 
stress  is  laid  upon  the  avoidance  of  fornication,  especially  after  the 
faith  had  begun  to  spread  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Judea.  The 
early  Christians  thus  were  a  thoroughly  puritan  sect,  teaching  by  ex¬ 
ample  as  well  as  by  precept,  and  their  lives  were  a  perpetual  protest 
against  the  license  which  reigned  around  them.1  It  therefore  was 
natural  that  converts,  after  their  eyes  wrere  opened  to  the  hideous 
nature  of  the  prevailing  vices,  should  feel  a  tendency  to  plunge  into 
the  other  extreme,  and  should  come  to  regard  even  the  lawful  indul¬ 
gence  of  human  instincts  as  a  w  eakness  to  be  repressed.  Civilization, 
indeed,  owes  too  much  to  the  reform  which  Christianity  rendered 
possible  in  the  relations  of  the  sexes,  for  us  to  condemn  too  severely 
even  the  extravagances  into  which  it  was  sometimes  betrayed. 

That  it  was  becoming  not  uncommon  for  Christians  to  follow  a 
celibate  life  is  shown  by  various  passages  in  the  early  fathers.  St. 
Ignatius  alludes  to  abstinence  from  marriage  in  honor  of  God  as  a 
matter  not  uncommon,  but  which  was  wholly  voluntary  and  to  be 
practised  in  humility  and  secrecy,  for  the  virtue  of  continence  would 
be  much  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  sin  of  pride.2  The 


1  Quid  enim  enumeremus  infinitam 
multitudinem  eorumqui  ab  incontinent 
intemperataque  vita  abducti  sunt  quum 
haec  ipsa  didicissent  ?  —  Oust.  Mart. 
Apol.  ii. 

2  “Si  glorietur,  perditur:  et  si  videri 
velit  plus  Episcopo,  corruptus  est.” — 
Ad  Polycarp.  cap.  v.  (Cureton’s  Cor¬ 


pus  Ignat,  p.  10.)  This  is  the  received 
Latin  text,  but  the  weight  of  authority 
seems  to  incline  rather  to  the  reading 
7T/7JV  tov  kiriGKonox >  than  nteov  (Curcton, 
p.  228 — Petermann’s  Ignatius,  274-5). 
The  difference,  however,  is  of  little 
moment  to  our  present  purpose. 


ASCETIC  HERESIES. 


33 


Apologists,  Justin  Martyr  about  the  year  150,  Athenagoras  about  180, 
and  Minucius  Felix  about  200,  all  refer  to  the  chastity  and  sobriety 
which  characterized  the  sect,  the  celibacy  practised  by  some  members, 
and  the  single  marriage  of  others,  of  which  the  sole  object  was  the 
securing  of  offspring  and  not  the  gratification  of  the  passions.  Athen¬ 
agoras,  indeed,  condemns  the  exaggerations  of  asceticism  in  terms 
which  show  that  already  they  had  made  their  appearance  among  the 
more  ardent  disciples,  but  that  they  were  strongly  disapproved  by  the 
wiser  portion  of  the  Church.  Origen  seems  to  regard  celibacy  as 
rather  springing  from  a  desire  to  serve  God  without  the  interruptions 
arising  from  the  cares  of  marriage  than  from  asceticism,  and  does  not 
hesitate  to  condemn  those  who  abandoned  their  wives  even  from  the 
highest  motives.1  The  impulse  towards  aceticism,  however,  was  too 
strong  to  be  resisted.  Zealots  were  not  wanting  who  boldly  declared 
that  to  follow  the  precepts  of  the  Creator  was  incompatible  with 
salvation,  as  though  a  beneficent  God  should  create  a  species  which 
could  only  preserve  its  temporal  existence  by  forfeiting  its  promised 
eternity.  Ambitious  men  were  to  be  found  who  sought  notoriety  or 
power  by  the  reputation  to  be  gained  from  self-denying  austerities, 
which  brought  to  them  followers  and  believers  venerating  them  as 
prophets.  Philosophers  were  there,  also,  who,  wearied  with  the  end¬ 
less  speculations  of  Pythagorean  and  Platonic  mysticism,  sought 
relief  in  the  practical  morality  of  the  Gospel,  and  perverted  the  sim¬ 
plicity  of  its  teachings  by  interweaving  with  it  the  subtle  philosophy 
of  the  schools,  producing  an  apparent  intoxication  wFich  plunged 
them  either  into  the  grossest  sensuality  or  the  most  rigorous  asceticism. 
Such  were  Julian  Cassianus,  Saturnilus,  Marcion,  the  founder  of  the 
Marcionites,  Tatianus,  the  heresiarch  of  the  Encratitians,  and  the 
unknown  authors  of  a  crowd  of  sects  which,  under  the  names  of 
Abstinentes,  Apotactici,  Excalceati,  etc.,  practised  various  forms  of 
self-mortification,  and  denounced  marriage  as  a  deadly  sin.2  Such, 
on  the  other  hand,  wTere  Valentinus  and  Prodicus  who  originated  the 
mystic  libertinism  of  the  Gnostics;  Marcus,  whose  followers,  the 


1  Just.  Mart.  Apol.  n. — Athenagor. 
pro  Christianis  Legat. — M.  Minuc. 
Eelicis  Octavius. — Origenis  Comment, 
in  Matt.  xiv.  24-5. 

2  So  widely  spread  had  these  doctrines 
become  hy  the  end  of  the  second  cen¬ 
tury  that  Clement  of  Alexandria  de¬ 
votes  the  third  hook  of  his  Stromata  to 
their  discussion  and  refutation.  It  is 


not  worth  while  to  examine  their  pecu¬ 
liarities  minutely  here.  The  curious 
reader  can  find  all  that  he  is  likely  to 
want  concerning  them  in  Irenieus,  Hip- 
polytus,  Clement,  Epiphanius,  and 
Philastrius,  without  plunging  further 
into  the  vast  sea  of  controversial  patris¬ 
tic  theology. 


3 


34 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


Marcosians,  were  accused  of  advocating  the  most  disgusting  practices, 
Carpocrates  who  held  that  the  soul  was  obliged  to  have  experience  of 
all  manner  of  evil  before  it  could  be  elevated  to  God ;  Basilides  whose 
sectaries  honored  the  passions  as  emanating  from  the  Creator,  and 
taught  that  their  impulses  were  to  be  followed.  Even  the  Ebionites 
did  not  escape  the  taint,  if  Epiphanius  is  to  be  believed ;  and  there 
was  also  a  sect  advocating  promiscuous  intercourse,  to  whom  the  name 
of  Nicolites  was  given  in  memory  of  the  story  of  Nicholas,  the 
deacon  of  the  primitive  church,  who  offered  to  his  fellow-disciples  the 
wife  Avhom  he  was  accused  of  loving  with  too  exclusive  a  devotion — 
a  sect  which  merited  the  reproof  of  St.  John,  and  which  has  a  special 
interest  for  us  because  in  the  eleventh  century  all  who  opposed  clerical 
celibacy  were  branded  with  its  name,  thus  affording  to  the  sacerdotal 
party  the  inestimable  advantage  of  stigmatizing  their  antagonists 
with  an  opprobrious  epithet  of  the  most  damaging  character,  and  of 
invoking  the  authority  of  the  Apocalypse  for  their  destruction.1 

The  church  was  too  pure  to  be  led  astray  by  the  libertinism  of 
the  latter  class  of  heresiarchs.  The  time  had  not  yet  come  for  the 
former,  and  men  who,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  might  perhaps  have 
founded  powerful  orders,  and  have  been  reverenced  by  the  Christian 
world  as  new  incarnations  of  Christ,  were,  through  their  anachro¬ 
nism,  stigmatized  as  heretics,  and  expelled  from  the  communion  of 
the  faithful.  Still,  their  religious  fervor  and  rigorous  virtue  had  a 
gradually  increasing  influence  in  stimulating  the  development  of  the 
ascetic  principle,  if  not  in  the  acknowledged  dogmas,  at  all  events, 
in  the  practice  of  the  church,  as  may  be  seen  when,  towards  the  close 
of  the  second  century,  Dionysius  of  Corinth  finds  himself  obliged 
to  reprove  Pinytus,  Bishop  of  Gnosus,  for  endeavoring  to  render 
celibacy  compulsory  among  his  flock,  to  the  manifest  danger  of  those 
whose  virtue  was  less  austere.2  In  all  this,  unquestionably,  the 
ascetic  ideas  of  the  East  had  much  to  do,  and  these  were  chiefly  repre¬ 
sented  by  Buddhism,  which,  since  the  reign  of  Asoka,  in  the  third 
century  B.C.,  had  been  the  dominant  religion  of  India.  A  curious 
allusion  in  St.  Jerome  to  Buddha’s  having  been  born  of  a  virgin,3 


1  Apocalyps.  n.  6,  14,  15,  20. — Iremei 
contr.  Haares.  i.  xxvi. — Hippolyti  Ref. 
omn.  Haeres.  iv.  xxiv. — Clem.  Alex. 
Stromat.  Lib.  III. — Epiphan.  Haeres. 
xxv. — The  injustice  thus  inflicted  on 
the  memory  of  the  worthy  Nicholas  is 
recognized  by  the  Apostolical  Constitu¬ 


tions  (Lih.  iv.  c.  viii.).  In  1679,  E.  P. 
Rothius  published  a  dissertation  (Z>e 
Nicholaitis),  in  which  a  vast  mass  of 
curious  learning  is  brought  to  the  vin¬ 
dication  of  the  apostolic  deacon. 

2  Rufin.  Hist.  Eccles. — Euseb.  iv.  23. 

3  Hieron.  adv.  Jovin.  Lib.  i.  c.  42. 


INFLUENCE  OF  BUDDHISM. 


35 


shows  a  familiarity  with  details  of  Buddhist  belief  which  presupposes 
a  general  knowledge  of  that  faith ;  and  though  the  divinized  Maya, 
wife  of  Suddhodana,  is  not  absolutely  described  as  a  virgin  in  eastern 
tradition,  yet  she  and  her  husband  had  taken  a  vow  of  continence 
before  Buddha,  from  the  Tushita  heaven,  to  fulfil  his  predestined 
salvation  of  mankind  and  establishment  of  the  kingdom  of  righteous¬ 
ness,  had  selected  her  as  the  vehicle  of  his  incarnation.  Much  in 
the  legend  of  his  birth,  of  the  miracles  which  attended  it,  of  his 
encounter  with  the  Tempter,  and  other  details  of  his  life,  is  curiously 
suggestive  of  the  source  whence  sprang  the  corresponding  legend  of 
the  life  of  Christ,  more  particularly  as  related  in  the  pseudo-gospels.1 
Not  only  this,  but  many  of  the  observances  of  Latin  Christianity 
can  scarce  be  explained  save  by  derivation  from  Buddhism,  such  as 
monasticism,  the  tonsure,  the  use  of  rosaries,  confession,  penance, 
and  absolution,  the  sign  of  the  cross,  relic-worship,  and  miracles 
wrought  by  relics,  the  purchase  of  salvation  by  gifts  to  the  church, 
pilgrimages  to  sacred  places,  etc.  etc.  Even  the  nimbus  which  in  sacred 
art  surrounds  the  head  of  holy  personages,  is  to  be  found  in  the 
sculptures  of  the  Buddhist  Topes,  and  the  Sangreal,  or  Holy  Cup  of 
the  Last  Supper,  which  was  the  object  of  lifelong  quest  by  the 
Christian  knight,  is  but  the  Patra  or  begging-dish  of  Buddha,  which 
was  the  subject  of  many  curious  legends.2  It  is  no  wonder  that 
when  the  good  Jesuit  missionaries  of  the  sixteenth  century  found 
among  the  heathen  of  Asia  so  much  of  what  they  were  familiar  with 
at  home,  they  could  not  decide  whether  it  was  the  remains  of  a  preex¬ 
isting  Catholicism,  or  whether  Satan,  to  damn  irrevocably  the  souls 
of  men,  had  parodied  and  travestied  the  sacred  mysteries  and  cere- 


1  Compare  Beal’s  “  Romantic  Legend 
of  Sakhya  Buddha  from  the  Chinese 
Sanscrit,”  pp.  33  sqq.,  with  the  Prote- 
vangelion,  the  Gospel  of  the  Infancy, 
the  Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  etc. 

Somewhat  similar  to  the  Buddhist 
legend  is  the  assertion  of  the  Jainas 
that  their  great  Tirthankara,  Mahavira, 
selected  the  womb  of  Brahamani  Deva- 
nandi,  wife  of  Rishabha  Datta,  as  his 
place  of  birth ;  hut  Sakra,  indignant  that 
he  should  he  horn  in  the  Brahman 
caste,  caused  him  to  be  transferred  to 
Trisala,  wife  of  the  Kshatriya  Siddhar- 
tha  (Kalpa  Sutra,  Bk.  i.  ch.  i.  Steven¬ 
son’s  Translation,  pp.  24,  38).  Con¬ 
cerning  the  comparative  priority  of 
Jainism  and  Buddhism,  see  Thomas’s 


11  Jainism,  or  the  early  Faith  of  Asoka,” 
London,  1877. 

In  this  connection,  it  is  perhaps  worth 
while  to  note  the  Mazdean  belief  in 
Saoshyans,  the  future  Messiah,  who,  as 
in  Judaism,  is  to  overcome  the  evil 
powers  at  the  end  of  the  world,  and 
preside  over  the  resurrection  of  man¬ 
kind,  and  who  is  to  he  born  of  a  virgin, 
Eredhat  Fedri.  (Yendidad,  Fargard 
xix.  18;  Bundehesh  xxx.  xxxn.  8,  9  ; 
Haug’s  Essays,  Ed.  1878,  pp.  313-14). 
The  mode  of  his  conception  as  related 
in  the  Bundehesh,  may  be  compared 
with  the  less  decent  speculations  of  San¬ 
chez  as  to  that  of  Christ. 

2  Beal’s  Buddhist  Tripitaka,  pp. 
114-5. 


36 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


monies,  and  introduced  them  in  those  distant  regions.1  We  are  there¬ 
fore  safe  in  ascribing  to  Buddhist  beliefs  at  least  a  portion  of  the 
influence  which  led  the  church  into  the  extravagances  of  asceticism. 

The  first  official  manifestation  of  this  growing  tendency,  applied  to 
the  relations  of  the  sexes,  is  to  be  seen  in  the  legislation  with  regard 
to  second  marriages.  In  the  passages  alluded  to  above  from  Athenagoras 
and  Minucius  Felix,  the  fact  is  referred  to  that  second  marriages  were 
already  regarded  as  little  better  than  adulterous,  while  Justin  Martyr 
denounces  them  as  sinful,  in  spite  of  the  permission  so  freely  granted 
by  St.  Paul  for  such  unions.2  Though  this  opinion  was  branded  by 
the  church  as  heretical  when  it  was  elevated  into  an  article  of  belief 
by  the  Montanists  and  Cathari,  or  Puritans,  and  though  even  the 
eminence  and  piety  of  Tertullian  could  not  save  him  from  excommu¬ 
nication  when  he  embraced  the  doctrine,  yet  the  orthodox  came  very 
near  accepting  it,  for  the  Council  of  Neocsesarea,  in  314,  forbade 
priests  from  honoring  with  their  presence  the  festivities  customary 
on  such  occasions,  as  those  who  married  a  second  time  were  subject 
to  penance,  and  that  of  Laodicea,  in  352,  deemed  it  a  matter  of 
indulgence  to  admit  to  communion  those  who  contracted  such  unions, 
after  they  had  redeemed  their  fault  by  fasting  and  prayer  for  a 
certain  time — a  principle  repeated  by  innumerable  councils  during 
the  succeeding  centuries.  So  far  did  this  prejudice  extend  that  as 
late  as  484  we  find  the  Pope,  St.  Gelasius,  obliged  to  remind  the 
faithful  that  such  marriages  are  not  to  be  refused  to  laymen.3  It  is 
by  no  means  impossible  that  this  opposition  to  repeated  wedlock 
may  have  arisen,  or  perhaps  have  been  intensified,  by  a  similar  feel¬ 
ing  which  existed  among  the  Pagans,  at  least  with  regard  to  the 
second  marriages  of  women.  Moreover,  in  Rome  the  Flamen  Dialis 
was  restricted  to  a  single  marriage  with  a  virgin,  and  such  was  the 
strictness  with  which  this  was  observed  that  as  the  assistance  of  the 


1  Marini,  Missioni  di  Tumkino,Koma, 
1663,  pp.  125,  481,  490  sq. 

2  “  Quare  vel  ut  natus  estunusquisque 
nostrum  manet,  vel  nuptiis  copulatus 
unicis,  sccundio  enim  decorum  quoddntn 
adulterium  sunt.”  Athenag.  pro  Christ. 
Legat. — “Unius  matrimonii  vinculo 
lihenter  inhaeremus,  cupiditate  procre- 
andi  autunamscimus  aufc  nullam.”  M. 

Minuc.  Felicis  Octavius. — “Ut  ii  qui 
lege  humana  bis  conjugium  ineuntpecca- 
torcs  sunt  apud  pra?ceptorem  nostrum.” 
Justin.  Mart.  Apol.  n. — I.  Cor.  vii.  39. 


3  Concil  Ncocaes.  ann.  314  c.  7. — Con- 
cil.  Laodicens.  ann.  352  c.  1. — Gelasii 
PP.  I.  Epist.  ix.  Kubr.  ad  cap.  xxii. — 
Cf.  Hieron.  Epist.  xlviii.  apologeticus, 
c.  18. — Ejusd.  Comment.,  in  Jeremiam 
Prolog.  Even  in  modern  times  the 
priest  who  pronounces  a  benediction  on 
a  second  marriage  commits  an  offence 
subjecting  him  to  punishment  (Rodri¬ 
guez,  Nuova  Somma  de’Casi  di  Cos- 
cienza,  Yenez.  1609.  P.  I.  cap.  ccxl. 
No.  4). 


RESTRICTION  TO  SINGLE  MARRIAGE. 


37 


Flaminica,  his  wife,  was  necessary  to  the  performance  of  some  re¬ 
ligious  rites,  he  was  obliged  to  resign  when  left  a  widower.1 

Although  the  church  forbore  to  prohibit  absolutely  the  repetition 
of  matrimony  among  the  laity,  it  yet,  at  an  early  though  uncertain 
period,  imitated  the  rule  enforced  on  the  Flamen  Dialis,  and  rendered 
it  obligatory  on  the  priesthood,  thus  for  the  first  time  drawing  a  dis¬ 
tinct  line  of  separation  between  the  great  body  of  the  faithful  and 
those  who  officiated  as  ministers  of  Christ.  It  thus  became  firmly 
and  irrevocably  established  that  no  “digamus”  or  husband  of  a 
second  wife  was  admissible  to  holy  orders.  As  early  as  the  time  of 
Tertullian  we  find  the  rule  formally  expressed  by  him,  and  he  even 
assures  us  that  the  whole  structure  of  the  church  was  based  upon  the 
single  marriages  of  its  ministers.  Indeed,  the  holy  rites  came  to 
be  regarded  as  so  entirely  incompatible  with  repetition  of  wedlock 
that  the  Council  of  Elvira,  in  305,  while  admitting  that  in  cases  of 
extreme  necessity  a  layman  might  administer  baptism,  is  careful  to 
specify  that  he  must  not  be  a  “  digamus.”2 

Yet  this  restriction  on  the  priesthood  was  not  easily  enforced,  and 
already  we  begin  to  hear  the  complaints,  which  have  followed  uninter¬ 
ruptedly  for  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years,  of  the  evasion  or  dis¬ 
regard  of  the  regulations  whereby  the  church  has  sought  to  repress 
the  irrepressible  instincts  of  humanity.  In  the  early  part  of  the 
third  century  Hippolytus,  Bishop  of  Portus,  in  his  enumeration  of 
the  evil  ways  of  Pope  Calixtus,  taxes  the  pontiff  with  admitting  to 
the  priesthood  men  who  had  been  married  twice,  and  even  thrice, 
and  with  permitting  priests  to  marry  while  in  orders.  Even  the 
great  apostle  of  celibacy,  St.  Jerome,  expresses  surprise  that  Oceanus 
should  object  to  Carterius,  a  Spanish  bishop,  on  the  ground  that  he 
had  had  a  wife  before  baptism,  and  a  second  one  after  admission  to 
the  church.  The  world,  he  adds,  is  full  of  such  prelates,  not  only  in 
the  lower  orders  but  in  the  episcopate,  the  digamous  members  of  which 
exceed  in  number  the  three  hundred  prelates  lately  assembled  at  the 
Council  of  Rimini.  Yet  this  was  the  formal  rule  of  the  church  as 
enunciated  in  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  and  Canons — bodies  of  eccle¬ 
siastical  law  not  included,  indeed,  in  the  canon  of  Scripture,  but  yet  so 


1  Val.  Max.  n.  i.  3. — Plut.  Qusestt. 
Roman.  105. — Diod.  Sicul.  xn.  14. — 
Tertull.  Lib.  di  Exhort.  Castit.  xiii. — 
Auli  Gellii  x.  15. 


2  Tertull.  Lib.  di  Exhort.  Castit.  vii.; 
de  Monogam.  xi. — Concil.  Eliberit. 
xxxviii. 


38 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


venerable  that  their  origin  was  already  lost  sight  of,  and  they  were  every¬ 
where  received  as  authoritative  expositions  of  primitive  discipline.1 

The  introduction  of  this  entering-wedge  is  easily  explicable.  St. 
Paul  had  specified  the  monogamic  condition — “  unius  uxoris  vir  ” — 
as  a  prerequisite  to  the  diaconate,  priesthood,  and  episcopate,  and  the 
temper  of  the  times  was  such  as  to  lead  irresistibly  to  this  being 
taken  in  its  literal  sense,  rather  than  to  adopt  the  more  rational  view 
that  it  was  intended  to  exclude  those  among  the  Gentiles  who  in¬ 
dulged  in  the  prevalent  vice  of  concubinage,  or  who  among  the  Jews 
had  fallen  into  the  sin  of  polygamy — or  those  among  either  race  w'ho 
had  taken  advantage,  either  before  or  after  conversion,  of  the  dis¬ 
graceful  laxity  prevalent  with  regard  to  divorces,  for,  as  we  learn 
from  Origen,  the  rule  wTas  by  no  means  obeyed  which  forbade  a 
divorced  person  to  marry  during  the  lifetime  of  the  other  spouse.2 

When  once  this  principle  was  fairly  established,  and  wThen  at  the 
same  time  the  efforts  of  the  Montanists  to  render  it  binding  on  the 
whole  body  of  Christian  believers  had  failed,  a  distinction  was  en¬ 
forced  between  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  as  regards  the  marriage-tie, 
which  gave  to  the  former  an  affectation  of  sanctity,  and  which  was 
readily  capable  of  indefinite  expansion.  It  is  therefore  easy  to  com¬ 
prehend  the  revival,  which  shortly  followed,  of  the  old  Levitical  rule 
requiring  the  priesthood  to  marry  none  but  virgins — a  rule  which 
was  early  adopted,  though  it  took  long  to  establish  it  in  practice,  for 


1  Hippol.  Ref.  omn.  Haeres.  ix.  vii. — 
Hieron.  Epist,  lxix.  ad  Oceanum. — 
Constit.  Apostol.  vi.  17. — Canon.  Apos- 
tol.  xvii.,  xviii.,  xix. 

2  I.  Tim.  iii.  2,  11,  12 —Tit.  i.  6.— 
Origenis  Comment,  in  Matt.  xiv.  23. 
The  polygamy  practised  by  the  Jews 
from  the  earliest  times  was  continued 
after  the  Dispersion.  Justin  Martyr 
taxes  them  with  it  (Dial,  cum  Try- 
phone),  and  Theodosius,  in  393,  endeav¬ 
ored  to  suppress  it  (Const.  7  Cod.  Lib. 
ii.  Tit.  ix.)  by  a  law,  the  preservation  of 
which  by  Justinian,  after  an  interval 
of  nearly  a  century  and  a  half,  shows 
that  the  necessity  for  the  prohibition 
still  existed.  Even  among  some  of  the 
eastern  Christians  the  precept  was  re¬ 
quired,  if  we  may  believe  some  ancient 
Arabic  canons,  which  pass  under  the 
name  of  the  Council  of  Niciea  (Decret. 
ex  quatuor  Regum  libris  can.  v.  ap. 
Harduin.  Concil.  I.  511). 

This  explanation  of  St.  Raul’s  injunc¬ 


tion  is  adopted  by  Theophylact  (Com¬ 
ment.  in  1.  Epist.  ad  Timoth.)  and  is 
expressed  in  the  paraphrase  “  non  plures 
habens  uxores  quam  unam,”  in  a  tract 
of  uncertain  date,  attributed  to  St. 
Cyprian  or  St.  Augustin  (De  xn. 
Abusionibus  Seculae  cap  x.  ap.  Opp.  S. 
Cypriani  Mantissa  p.  49,  Oxon.  1682). 
This  is  likewise  the  view  put  forward 
by  the  Church  of  Geneva  in  1563,  when 
replying  to  certain  queries  of  the  Hugue¬ 
not  Synod  of  Lyons  (Cap.  xxi.  Art.  x. 
j  ap.  Quick,  Synodicon  in  Gall.  Reform. 
I.  49).  Origen’s  discussion  of  the  matter 
(Comment,  in  Matt.  xiv.  23-4)  shows 
how  doubtful  he  considered  it. 

In  fact,  if  the  text  is  to  be  construed 
with  rigorous  exactness,  it  would  exclude 
all  unmarried  men  from  the  episcopate, 
and  this  seems  to  be  the  sense  attributed 
to  it  in  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  (Lib. 
ii.  c.  ii.),  which  in  commenting  upon 
it  do  not  appear  to  contemplate  bache- 
i  lors  as  eligible. 


NEO-PLATONISM. 


39 


as  late  as  414  we  find  Innocent  I.  complaining  that  men  who  had 
taken  widows  to  wife  were  even  elevated  to  the  episcopate,  and  Leo 
I.  devoted  several  of  his  epistles  to  its  enforcement.1  A  corollary  to 
this  speedily  followed,  which  required  a  priest  whose  wife  was  guilty 
of  adultery  to  put  her  away,  since  further  commerce  with  her  ren¬ 
dered  him  unfit  for  the  functions  of  his  office ;  and  this  again,  as 
subsequent  authorities  were  careful  to  point  out,  afforded  a  powerful 
reason  for  requiring  absolute  celibacy  on  the  part  of  the  clergy,  for, 
in  view  of  the  fragility  of  the  sex,  no  man  could  feel  assured  that  he 
was  not  subject  to  this  disability,  nor  could  the  faithful  be  certain 
that  his  ministrations  were  not  tainted  with  irregularity.2  We  thus 
reach  the  state  of  ecclesiastical  discipline  at  the  close  of  the  third 
century,  as  authoritatively  set  forth  in  the  Apostolical  Constitutions 
and  Canons — bishops  and  priests  allowed  to  retain  the  wives  which 
they  may  have  had  before  ordination,  but  not  to  marry  in  orders ; 
the  lower  grades,  deacons,  subdeacons,  etc.,  allowed  to  marry  after 
entering  the  church ;  but  all  were  to  be  husbands  of  but  one  wife, 
who  must  be  neither  a  widow,  a  divorced  woman,  nor  a  concubine.3 

Meanwhile,  public  opinion  had  moved  faster  than  the  canons. 
Ascetic  sects  multiplied  and  increased,  and  the  highest  authorities  in 
the  church  could  not  always  resist  the  contagion.  A  fresh  incite¬ 
ment,  indeed,  had  been  found  in  the  neo-platonic  philosophy  which 
arose  in  the  beginning  of  the  third  century.  Ammonius  Saccas,  its 
founder,  was  a  Christian,  though  not  altogether  orthodox,  and  his 
two  most  noted  disciples,  Origen  and  Plotinus,  fairly  illustrate  the 
influence  which  his  doctrines  had  upon  both  the  Christian  and  the 
Pagan  world.  As  to  the  latter,  neo-platonism  borrowed  from  Chris¬ 
tian  and  Indian  as  well  as  Greek  philosophy,  evolving  out  of  them 
all  a  system  of  elevated  mysticism  in  which  the  senses  and  the  ap¬ 
petites  were  to  be  controlled  as  severely  almost  as  in  the  Sankhya 
and  Buddhist  schools.  Commerce  between  the  sexes  was  denounced 
as  a  pollution  degrading  to  the  soul,  and  the  best  offering  which  a 
worshipper  could  bring  to  the  Deity  was  a  soul  absolutely  free  from 
all  trace  of  passion.4  Although  neo-platonism  engaged  in  a  hopeless 


1  Levit.  xxi.  13-14. — Innocent.  PP.  I. 
Epist.  xxii.  c.  1. — Epistt.  Leon.  PP.  I. 
ap.  Harduin.  Concil.  I.  1767,  1772, 
etc. 

2  Concil.  Eliberit.  can.  65. — Concil. 

Neocaesarens.  c.  8. — Concil. Tarraconens. 

ann.  516.  can.  9. — Boussardus  de  Con¬ 


tinent.  Sacerdot.  Prop.  6.,  Nuremb., 
1510. 

3  Constit.  Apostol.  vi.  17. —  Canon. 
Apostol.  VI.  XVII.  XVIII.  XIX.  XXVII. 

4  Porphyr.  de  Abstinent,  ii.  46,  61  ; 
iv.  20. — Cf.  Jambl.  de  Mysteriis  iv.  xi. 
— Damasceni  Yit.  Isidori  311. 


40 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


struggle  to  stay  the  advancing  tide  of  Christianity,  and  thus  became 
its  most  active  opponent,  yet  the  lofty  asceticism  which  it  inculcated 
could  not  be  without  influence  upon  its  antagonists,  were  it  only 
through  inflaming  the  emulation  of  those  who  were  already  predis¬ 
posed  to  regard  the  mortification  of  the  flesh  as  a  means  of  raising 
the  soul  to  communion  with  God.1 

How  these  motives  worked  upon  an  ardent  and  uncompromising 
temperament  is  seen  in  the  self-sacrifice  of  Origen,  showing  how  ab¬ 
sorbing  was  the  struggle,  and  how'  intense  wTas  the  conviction  that 
nature  must  be  conquered  at  all  hazards  and  by  any  practicable 
means,  although  he  himself  afterwards  condemned  this  practical  ren¬ 
dering  of  the  text  (Matt.  xix.  12)  on  which  it  w'as  founded.  Origen 
was  by  no  means  the  first  who  had  sought  in  this  w'ay  to  gain  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  for  he  alludes  to  it  as  a  matter  by  no  means  un¬ 
exampled,  and  before  him  Justin  Martyr  had  chronicled  with  appro¬ 
bation  a  similar  case.  In  fact,  there  is  said  to  have  been  an  obscene 
sect  w'hich  under  the  name  of  Valesians  followed  the  practice  and 
procured  proselytes  by  inflicting  forcible  mutilation  upon  all  who 
were  unhappy  enough  to  fall  into  their  hands ;  and  though  their 
date  and  locality  are  unknown  to  those  who  allude  to  them,  it  would 
be  rash,  in  view'  of  similar  eccentricities  existing  in  more  modern 
times,  to  pronounce  them  wholly  apocryphal.  The  repeated  prohi¬ 
bitions  of  the  practice,  in  the  canons  of  the  succeeding  century, 
show'  how  difficult  it  was  to  eradicate  the  belief  that  such  self-immo¬ 
lation  w'as  an  acceptable  offering  to  a  beneficent  Creator.  Sextus 
Philosophus,  an  ascetic  author  of  the  third  century,  whose  writings 
long  passed  current  under  the  name  of  Pope  Sixtus  II.,  did  not  hesi¬ 
tate  openly  to  advocate  it,  and  though  his  arguments  were  regarded 
as  heretical  by  the  church,  they  w7ere  at  least  as  logical  as  the  prac¬ 
tical  application  given  to  the  texts  commonly  cited  in  defence  of  the 
prohibition  of  marriage.2 * * * * 


1  For  the  influence  of  Buddhism  on 
Neo-platonism,  Gnosticism,  and  Mani- 
chaeism,  see  A.  W eber,  Indische  Skizzen, 
pp.  G3,  91. 

2  Origenis  Comment,  in  Matt.  xv.  1-3. 
— Just.  Martyr.  Apolog.  II. — Epiphan. 

Hseres.  lvii.  —  Can.  Apostol.  xxn. 
xxiii.  xxiv. — Concil.Nicaen.c.i. — Con- 

cil.  Arelatens.  II.  ann.  452  c.  vii. ,  etc. — 

£4exti  Philos.  Sent.  ix. — At  the  close  of 

the  twelfth  century  the  canons  were  re¬ 

laxed  by  Clement  III.  in  favor  of  a 


priest  of  Ravenna  whose  ascetic  ardor 
had  led  him  to  follow  the  example  of 
Origen,  and  who  was  permitted  to  re¬ 
tain  all  the  functions  of  the  priesthood 
except  the  ministry  of  the  altar  (Can. 
iv.  Extra,  I.  xx.).  In  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  Amhrosio  Morales,  a  Dominican, 
took  the  same  effectual  means  to  extin¬ 
guish  his  passions  and  was  in  conse¬ 
quence  expelled  from  the  Order,  as  re¬ 
quired  hy  the  canons.  He  betook  him¬ 
self  t<>  literature  and  died  in  1590,  at 


VOLUNTARY  VOWS  OF  CHASTITY. 


41 


Not  all,  however,  who  sought  the  praise  or  the  merits  of  austerity 
were  prepared  to  pay  such  a  price  for  victory  in  the  struggle  with 
themselves.  Enthusiastic  spirits,  exalted  with  the  prospect  of  earthly 
peace  and  heavenly  rewards  promised  to  those  who  should  preserve 
the  purity  of  virginity  and  live  abstracted  from  the  cares  and  pleasures 
of  family  life,  frequently  took  the  vow  of  continence  which  had 
already  become  customary.  This  vow  as  yet  was  purely  voluntary. 
It  bound  those  who  assumed  it  only  during  their  own  pleasure,  nor 
were  they  during  its  continuance,  in  any  way  segregated  from  the 
world.  So  untrammelled,  indeed,  were  their  actions  that  Cyprian  is 
forced  to  rebuke  the  holy  virgins  for  frequenting  the  public  baths  in 
which  both  sexes  indiscriminately  exposed  themselves,  and  he  does 
not  hesitate  to  attribute  to  this  cause  much  of  the  ruin  and  dishonor 
of  its  votaries  which  afflicted  the  church.1  Yet,  this  was  by  no  means 
the  severest  trial  to  which  many  of  them  subjected  their  constancy. 
Perhaps  it  was  to  court  spiritual  martyrdom  and  to  show  to  their  ad¬ 
mirers  a  virtue  robust  enough  to  endure  the  most  fiery  trials,  perhaps 
it  was  that  they  found  too  late  that  they  had  overestimated  their 
strength,  and  that  existence  was  a  burden  without  the  society  of  some 
beloved  object — but,  whatever  may  have  been  the  motive,  it  became 
a  frequent  custom  to  associate  themselves  with  congenial  souls  of  the 
other  sex,  and  form  Platonic  unions  in  which  they  aspired  to  main¬ 
tain  the  purity  which  they  had  vowed  to  God.  At  the  best,  the  sensi¬ 
ble  members  of  the  church  were  scandalized  by  these  performances, 
which  afforded  so  much  scope  for  the  mockery  of  the  heathen ;  but 
scandal  frequently  was  justified,  for  Nature  often  asserted  her  out- 


the  age  of  sixty,  while  professor  of 
eloquence  in  the  University  of  Alcala 
(De  Thou,  Lib.  xcix.).  The  practice 
has  perpetuated  itself  to  the  nineteenth 
century  in  a  Russian  sect,  which  Cath¬ 
erine  II.  and  her  successors  endeavored 
in  vain  to  repress.  In  1818  Alexander 
II.  ordered  the  enthusiasts  banished  to 
Siberia,  but  the  ardor  with  which  they 
courted  martyrdom  rendered  their  zeal 
dangerously  contagious  and  they  were 
left  in  obscurity,  in  the  hope  of  their 
dying  out  (Pluquet,  Diet,  des  Heresies, 
s.  v.  Mutilts  de  Russie).  This  proved 
equally  ineffectual,  for  a  recent  traveller 
describes  them  under  the  name  of  Skop- 
sis  as  a  large  tribe  inhabiting  the  Cau¬ 
casus,  where  they  flourish  in  spite  of 
the  most  energetic  measures  of  repres¬ 


sion  on  the  part  of  the  government — 
imprisonment,  banishment  to  Siberia, 
conscription,  and  even  the  death  pen¬ 
alty  being  powerless  to  overcome  their 
fanaticism  (Brugsch,  Reise  der  Preus- 
sischen  Gesandschaft  nach  Persien, 
1860-1,  ap.  London  Reader,  Jan.  3, 
1863).  Buflbn  (Hist.  Nat.  de  l’Homme, 
ap.  Helsen,  Abus  du  Celibat  des  Pretres, 
p.  52)  states  that  he  was  acquainted 
with  a  priest  who  had  adopted  this  mode 
as  the  only  one  to  preserve  his  virtue. 

1  Cyprian,  de  Habit.  Virgin. — That 
such  laxity  was  indulged  in  by  pro¬ 
fessed  virgins  is  the  more  remarkable 
since  promiscuous  bathing  was  forbid¬ 
den  to  every  one  by  the  Apostolic  Con¬ 
stitutions,  Lib.  i.  c.  x. 


42 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


raged  rights  to  the  shame  and  confusion  of  the  hapless  votaries  of  an 
artificial  and  superhuman  perfection.  Tertullian  does  not  hesitate  to 
assert  that  the  desire  of  enjoying  the  reputation  of  virginity  led  to 
much  secret  immorality,  the  effects  of  which  were  concealed  by  re¬ 
sort  to  infanticide.1  Cyprian  chronicles,  not  with  surprise  but  sor¬ 
row,  the  numerous  instances  which  he  had  known  of  ruin  resulting 
to  those  who  had  so  fatally  miscalculated  their  power  of  resistance: 
with  honest  indignation  he  denounces  the  ecclesiastics  who  abandoned 
themselves  to  practices  which,  if  not  absolutely  criminal,  were  bru¬ 
tally  degrading:  and  with  a  degree  of  common-sense  hardly  to  be 
looked  for  in  so  warm  an  admirer  of  the  perfection  of  virginity,  he 
advises  that  those  whose  weakness  rendered  doubtful  the  strict  ob¬ 
servance  of  their  vows  should  return  to  the  world  and  satisfy  their 
longings  in  legitimate  marriage.2  The  heresiarch  Paul  of  Samosata 
affords,  perhaps,  the  most  conspicuous  example  of  the  extent  to  which 
these  and  similar  practices  were  sometimes  carried,  and  in  condemning 
him,  the  good  fathers  of  the  Council  of  Antioch  lamented  the  general 
prevalence  of  the  evils  thence  arising.3  Cyprian’s  prudent  consider¬ 
ation  for  the  weakness  of  human  nature  was  as  yet  shared  by  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities.  In  the  order  of  widows  professed,  which 
was  recognized  by  the  early  church,  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  enjoin 
that  none  should  be  admitted  below  the  age  of  sixty,  in  order  to  avoid 
the  danger  of  their  infringing  their  vows  by  a  second  marriage,  but 
the  writer  is  careful  to  add  that  such  a  marriage  is  not  to  be  con¬ 
demned  for  itself,  but  only  on  account  of  the  falsehood  which  it  occa¬ 
sioned.  These  widows  and  virgins  were  supported  out  of  the  tithes 
of  the  church,  and  were,  therefore,  necessarily  subjected  to  its  con¬ 
trol,  so  that  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  there  was  nothing  irrevocable 
in  the  vows  wherewith  they  were  bound.  The  change  is  marked  by 
the  end  of  the  century,  when  widows  who  thus  forsook  their  order 
were  unrelentingly  and  irrevocably  condemned,  deprived  of  com¬ 
munion,  and  expelled  from  social  intercourse.4 

While  the  Christian  world  was  thus  agitated  with  the  speculative 


1  Tertull.  de  Virgin,  veland.  c.  xv.  |  gether  without  distinction  of  sex,  and 

2  Cyprian.  Epist.  iv.  ad  Pomponium.  with  no  garments  but  a  breech-clout ; 

3  Concil.  Antioch  (Harduin.  Concil.  while  others  who  frequented  the  cities 
I.  198).  Cf.  Lactant.  Divin.  lnstit.  vi.  exhibited  their  self-control  by  appear- 
xix. — Extravagances  of  this  kind  long  ing  in  the  public  baths  with  women, 
continued  to  be  a  favorite  exercise  with  (Niceph.  Callist.  H.  E.  xiv.  50.) 
enthusiasts.  In  450  the  anchorites  of(  4  Constit.  Apost.  n.  i.  ii. — Statut. 

Palestine  are  described  as  herding  to-  '  Eccles.  Antiq.  civ. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANICHiEISM. 


43 


doctrines  and  practical  observances  of  so  many  enthusiasts,  heretical 
and  orthodox,  who  seemed  to  regard  the  relations  between  the  sexes 
as  the  crucial  test  and  most  trustworthy  exponent  of  religious  ardor, 
a  new  dogma  arose  in  the  East  and  advanced  with  a  rapidity  which 
shows  how  much  progress  the  ascetic  spirit  had  already  made,  and 
how  ripe  were  the  unsettled  minds  of  zealots  to  welcome  whatever 
system  of  belief  promised  to  trample  most  ruthlessly  upon  nature, 
and  to  render  the  path  of  salvation  inaccessible  to  all  save  those 
capable  of  the  sternest  self-mortification.  Towards  the  end  of  the 
third  century,  the  Persian  Manes  made  his  advent  in  the  Empire, 
proclaiming  himself  as  the  Paraclete  and  as  a  new  and  higher  Apostle. 
Though  his  career  as  an  envoy  of  Christ  was  stoutly  resisted  by  the 
orthodox,  and  though,  after  a  chequered  life,  he  was  flayed  alive,  and 
his  followers  in  Persia  were  slaughtered  by  Yarahran  I.,1  his  western 
disciples  were  more  fortunate,  and  the  hateful  name  of  Manichsean 
acquired  a  sinister  notoriety  which  maintained  its  significance  for  a 
thousand  years.  His  system  was  a  compound  of  several  faiths,  and 
though  it  failed  in  its  comprehensive  design  to  bring  all  mankind 
together  in  one  form  of  belief,  it  yet  had  features  which  won  for  it 
the  enthusiastic  adhesion  of  men  of  diverse  races.  The  way  was 
already  prepared  for  its  reception  among  both  Gentiles  and  Chris¬ 
tians  by  the  prevalence  on  the  one  hand  of  the  Mithraic  worship, 
and  on  the  other  of  Gnosticism.  The  Dualistic  theory  was  attractive 
to  those  who  were  disheartened  in  the  vain  attempt  to  reconcile  the 
existence  of  evil  with  an  omnipotent  and  all-merciful  Creator ;  the 
Platonic  identity  of  the  soul  with  the  Godhead  was  a  recommenda¬ 
tion  to  the  schoolmen ;  the  Brahmanical  and  Buddhist  views  as  to 
abstinence  from  meat  and  marriage  won  adherents  among  the  remains 
of  the  ascetic  sects,  and  were  acceptable  even  to  those  among  the 
orthodox  who  were  yielding  to  the  increasing  influence  of  asceticism. 
The  fierce  temporal  persecution  of  the  still  Pagan  emperors,  and  the 
unavailing  anathemas  of  the  church,  as  yet  confined  to  mere  spiritual 
censures,  seemed  only  to  give  fresh  impetus  to  the  proselyting  energy 
of  the  Elect,  and  to  scatter  the  seed  more  widely  among  the  faithful. 
After  this  period  we  hear  but  little  of  the  earlier  ascetic  heresies ; 


1  Chronique  de  Tabari,  Ed.  Rothen- 
berg,  II.  90.  It  is  curious  to  observe 
that  Persian  tradition  represented  Manes 
as  a  Chinese  magician  and  an  excellent 
painter,  who  constructed  figures  that 
were  able  to  move,  and  thus  deceived 


the  people.  After  gaining  the  confi¬ 
dence  of  the  monarch,  he  was  van¬ 
quished  in  controversy  with  the  chief 
Mobed,  and  was  flayed  alive.  (Mohl’s 
Livre  des  Rois,  V.  379-81.) 


44 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


the  system  of  Manes,  as  moulded  by  his  followers,  was  so  much 
more  complete,  that  it  swallowed  up  its  prototypes  and  rivals,  and 
concentrated  upon  itself  the  vindictiveness  of  a  combined  church  and 
state.  So  thorough  was  this  identification  that  in  381  an  edict  of 
Theodosius  the  Great  directed  against  the  Manichaeans  assumes  that 
the  sects  of  Encratitae,  Apotactitae,  Hydroparastitae,  and  Saccofori 
were  merely  nominal  disguises  adopted  to  elude  detection.1 

That  Manichaeism,  in  fact,  exercised  a  substantial  influence  over 
orthodoxy  is  shown  in  other  directions  besides  that  of  asceticism. 
It  can  scarce  be  doubted  that  the  expansion  of  the  penitential  remis¬ 
sion  of  sins  into  the  system  of  purchasable  indulgences  received  a 
powerful  impulsion  from  the  precedent  set  by  Manes ;  and  the  de¬ 
nunciations  of  Ephraem  Syrus  form  a  fitting  precursor  to  those  of 
Luther.  In  the  same  way  the  Eucharist  w^as  diverted  from  its  origi¬ 
nal  form  of  a  substantial  meal — one  of  the  means  by  which  the 
charity  of  the  church  was  administered  to  the  poor — into  the  sym¬ 
bolical  wafer  and  wine  which  assimilated  it  so  closely  to  the  Izeshne 
sacrifice,  the  most  frequent  Mazdean  rite,  and  one  which,  like  the 
Mass,  was  customarily  performed  for  the  benefit  of  departed  souls.2 
Manes,  in  combining  Mazdeism  with  Christianity,  had  adopted  the 
Eucharist  in  the  Mazdean  form,  and  had  confined  the  use  of  the  cup 
to  the  priesthood ;  and  this  lay  communion  in  one  element  became 
so  well  recognized  as  a  test  of  Manichseism  that  Leo  the  Great 
ordered  the  excommunication  of  all  who  received  the  sacrament  after 
that  fashion.3  It  may  therefore  be  remarked  as  a  curious  coincidence 
that  when  Manichseism  was  revived  by  the  Albigenses,  in  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  centuries,  the  church,  which  until  then  had  preserved  its 
ancient  custom,  adopted  the  lay  communion  in  one  element  and 
adhered  to  it  so  rigidly  that,  as  vre  shall  see  hereafter,  not  even 
the  dread  of  the  Hussite  schism  nor  the  earnest  requests  of  those 


1  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  v.  1.  7. 
— Cf.  Concil.  Quinisext,  c.  95. 

Scvthianus,  the  precursor  of  Manes, 
is  said  by  Epiphanius  (Ilaeres.  lxvi  ) 
to  have  visited  India  and  t3  have 
brought  from  there  certain  books  of 
magic,  which  must  have  been  Bud¬ 
dhist,  as  Buddhism  was  at  that  period 
supreme  in  the  Peninsula.  His  dis¬ 
ciple,  Terbinthus,  the  link  between 
him  and  Manes,  assumed  the  name 
of  the  Buddha. 

*  Ephrsemi  Syri  Hymn.  n.  (Weg- 


nern,  Manichaeorum  Indulgentias, 
Lipsiae  1827)  —  Thomas’s  Sassanian 
Inscriptions,  p.  65. — Mainyo-i-khard, 
West’s  Ed.  xvi.  16  sq.  and  West’s 
note  p.  160;  Glossary  p.  64. — Haug’s 
Essays,  Bombay  Ed.  p  239. — Shayast 
la-Shayast  xvii.  2  (West’s  Pahlavi 
Texts,  Pt  I.  p.  382  and  West’s  note 
p.  284). — Dadistan-i  Dinik,ch.  xxviii. 
-xxx.  (Pahlavi  Texts,  II.  58  sqq.) — 
Plutarch  de  Isid.  et  Osirid.  46. — 
Justin.  Mart.  Apolog.  II. 

3  Leon.  PP.  I.  Serin,  xlii.  cap.  6. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MANICH,EISM. 


45 


who  remained  faithful  during  the  perils  of  the  Reformation,  could 
induce  it  to  grant  the  cup  to  the  laity.  Lay  communion  in  one  ele¬ 
ment  drew  a  line  of  distinction  between  the  priest  and  his  flock 
which  the  former  would  not  willingly  abandon. 

Although,  in  the  region  of  asceticism,  the  church  might  not  be 
willing  to  adopt  the  Manichgean  doctrine  that  man’s  body  is  the  work 
of  the  Evil  Principle,  and  that  the  Soul  as  partaking  of  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  God  was  engaged  in  an  eternal  war  with  it,  and  should  thus 
abuse  and  mortify  it1,  yet  the  general  tendencies  of  the  religious  en¬ 
thusiasm  of  the  time  made  the  practical  result  common  to  all,  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  spreading  belief  in  Manes  exercised  a 
powerful  influence  in  accelerating  the  progress  of  orthodox  asceti¬ 
cism.  The  fact  that  as  yet  the  church  was  persecuted  and  had  no 
power  of  imposing  its  yoke  on  others  bound  it  to  the  necessity  of 
maintaining  its  character  for  superior  sanctity  and  virtue ;  and  ardent 
believers  could  not  afford  to  let  themselves  be  outdone  by  heretics  in 
the  austerities  which  were  popularly  received  as  the  conclusive  evi¬ 
dence  of  religious  sincerity.  We  may  therefore  easily  imagine  a 
rivalry  in  asceticism  which,  however  unconscious,  may  yet  have  pow¬ 
erfully  stimulated  the  stern  and  unbending  souls  of  such  men  as  St. 
Antony,  Malchus,  and  Hilarion,  even  as  Tertullian,  after  combating 
the  errors  of  Montanus,  adopted  and  exaggerated  his  ascetic  heresies. 
It  would  be  easy  to  show  from  the  hagiologies  how  soon  the  church 
virtually  assented  to  the  Manichsean  notion  that  the  body  was  to  be 
mortified  and  macerated  as  the  only  mode  of  triumphing  in  the  per¬ 
ennial  struggle  with  the  evil  principle,  but  this  would  be  foreign  to 
our  subject.  It  is  sufficient  for  us  here  to  indicate  how  narrowly  in 
process  of  time  she  escaped  from  adopting  practically,  if  not  theoret¬ 
ically,  the  Manichsean  condemnation  of  marriage.  This  is  clearly 
demonstrated  by  the  writings  of  the  orthodox  Fathers,  who  in  their 
extravagant  praise  of  virginity  could  not  escape  from  decrying  wed¬ 
lock.  It  was  stigmatized  as  the  means  of  transmitting  and  perpet¬ 
uating  original  sin,  an  act  which  necessarily  entailed  sin  on  its 
participants,  and  one  which  at  best  could  only  look  for  mercy  and 
pardon  and  be  allowed  only  on  sufferance.  It  is  therefore  not  sur¬ 
prising  if  those  who  were  not  prepared  to  join  in  the  progress  of 
asceticism  should  habitually  stigmatize  the  mortifications  of  their 


1  Epiphan.  Eheres.  lxvi. — The  same  doctrine  was  held  by  the  Patricians,  ac¬ 
cording  to  Philastrius,  P.  in.  No.  15. 


46 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


more  enthusiastic  brethren  as  Manichaeism  in  spirit  if  not  in  name. 
Jovinian,  it  would  seem,  did  not  neglect  this  ready  means  of  attack; 
nor  was  he  alone,  for  Jerome  complains  that  the  worldly  and  disso¬ 
lute  sheltered  themselves  behind  the  same  excuse,  and  derided  as 
Manichaeans  all  who  were  pallid  and  faint  from  maceration  and  fast- 
nig.1  The  comparison,  indeed,  became  a  not  untruthful  one,  when 
the  Christian  and  the  heretic  both  adopted  the  plan  of  restricting  their 
sacred  class  from  the  pleasures  of  the  world — when  the  Manichaean 
Elect,  who  remained  unmarried  and  fasted  upon  vegetable  food,  were 
equivalent  to  the  priesthood,  while  the  Auditors,  to  whom  a  larger 
liberty  was  allowed,  represented  the  orthodox  laity.  It  is  by  no 
means  improbable  that  the  tenets  of  the  Manichaeans  have  been  ex¬ 
aggerated  by  their  opponents  in  controversy,  and  that  in  process  of 
time,  when  the  church  became  avowedly  ascetic,  there  was  practically 
little  difference  on  this  paint  between  Manichaeism  and  Orthodoxy. 
St.  Augustin,  indeed,  represents  the  Manichaean  Faustus  as  arguing 
that  both  in  doctrine  and  practice  his  sect  only  followed  the  example 
of  the  church.  He  ridicules  the  idea  that  it  could  prohibit  marriage, 
and  asserts  positively  that  it  only  encouraged  those  who  manifested 
a  desire  to  persevere  in  continence.  If  this  is  to  be  received  as  an 
authentic  exposition  of  Manichaean  principles,  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  church  was  not  long  in  outstripping  the  heretics.2 

In  fact,  even  as  early  as  the  time  of  Cyprian,  that  saint,  in  allusion 
to  the  parable  of  the  sower,  had  rated  the  comparative  merits  of  mar¬ 
tyrdom  to  virginity  as  one  hundred  to  sixty ;  while,  after  martyrdom 
had  gone  out  of  fashion,  St.  Patrick,  in  the  fifth  century,  undertook 
a  more  elaborate  classification  in  which  bishops  and  doctors  of  the 
church,  monks  and  virgins,  were  rated  at  one  hundred,  ecclesiastics 
in  general  and  widows  professed  at  sixty,  while  the  faithful  laity 
stand  only  at  thirty.3  It  was  therefore  a  heresy  for  Jovinian  to 
claim  equal  merit  for  maidens,  wives,  and  widows ;  and  though  St. 
Jerome,  in  controverting  this,  commenced  by  carefully  denying  any 
intentional  disrespect  towards  marriage,  still  his  controversial  ardor 
carried  him  so  far  in  that  direction,  that  he  aroused  considerable 
feeling  among  reasonable  men  and  was  obliged  formally  and  re¬ 
peatedly  to  excuse  himself.  His  contempt  for  marriage,  indeed,  was 


1  Hieron.  adv.  Jovin.  i.  3. — Ejusd. 
Epist.  ad  Eustoch.  c.  5. 

2  Augustin.  Epist.  lxxiv.  ad  Deu¬ 


terium — Ejusd.  contra  Faustum  Lib. 
xxx.  c.  iv. 

3  Cyprian,  de  Habit.  Virgin. — Synod. 
II.  S.  Patric.  c.  18. 


DEPRECIATION  OF  MARRIAGE. 


47 


so  extreme  that  in  spite  of  the  recognized  primacy  of  St.  Peter,  he 
considered  that  apostle  as  decidedly  inferior  to  St.  John,  because  the 
one  had  a  wife  and  the  other  was  a  virgin — apparently  not  observing 
that,  as  he  denied  the  marriage  of  all  the  apostles  save  Peter,  he  was 
thus  relegating  the  head  of  the  church  to  the  last  place  among  the 
holy  twelve.1  St.  Augustin  recognized  the  difficulty  of  reconciling 
the  current  views  of  his  time  with  the  necessities  of  humanity  when 
he  wrote  a  treatise  for  the  purpose  of  proving  the  difference  between 
the  good  of  marriage  and  the  evil  of  carnal  desire,  which,  while  it 
perpetuated  the  species,  likewise  perpetuated  original  sin ;  and  he 
gave  a  signal  example  of  the  manner  in  which  enthusiastic  asceticism 
sought  to  improve  upon  the  work  of  the  Creator  when  he  uttered  the 
pious  wish  that  all  mankind  should  abstain  from  marriage,  so  that 
the  human  race  might  the  sooner  come  to  an  end.2  St.  Martin  of 
Tours  was  somewhat  less  extravagant  when  he  was  willing  to  admit 
that  marriage  was  pardonable,  while  licentiousness  was  punishable 
and  virginity  glorious ;  and  he  was  far  behind  the  enthusiasts  of  his 
time,  for,  while  he  deplores  the  miserable  folly  of  those  who  consider 
marriage  to  be  equal  to  virginity,  he  is  likewise  obliged  to  reprove 
the  error  of  those  who  were  willing  only  to  compare  it  to  lechery — 
the  former  belief  being  evidently  much  more  erroneous  than  the 
latter  in  the  Saint’s  estimation.3  So  a  treatise  on  chastity,  which 
passes  under  the  name  of  Sixtus  III.,  barely  admits  that  married 
people  can  earn  eternal  life ;  and  it  apparently  is  only  the  dread  of 
being  classed  with  Manichseans  that  leads  the  author  to  shrink  from 
the  conclusions  of  his  own  reasoning,  and  to  state  that  he  does  not 
absolutely  condemn  wedlock  or  prohibit  it  to  those  who  cannot  re¬ 
strain  their  passions.4  Not  a  little  Manichsean  in  its  tendency  is  a 
declaration  of  Gregory  the  Great  to  Augustin  the  Apostle  of  Eng¬ 
land  that  connubial  pleasures  cannot  possibly  be  free  from  sin ;  and 
quite  as  decided  is  another  assertion  of  the  same  Pope  that  the  strict¬ 
ness  of  monastic  life  is  the  only  possible  mode  of  salvation  for  the 
greater  portion  of  mankind.5  It  was  the  natural  practical  deduction 


1  Hieron.  adv.  Jovin.  i.  2,  26. — Ejusd. 
Epistt.  L.  LI.  LII. 

2  Augustin,  de  Concupisc.  et  de  Nup- 
tiis. — Ejusd.  de  Bono  Conjugali  c.  x. — 

Panzini  (Confessione  di  un  Prigioniero, 

p.  193)  is  not  far  wrong  in  suggesting 

that  the  learned  doetors  who  thus  decry 
marriage  are  guilty  of  the  blasphemy  of 
addressing  their  creator — ‘  ‘  V ergogna- 


tevi  di  avere  inventato  un  modo  cosi 
turpe  per  darci  Pesistenza  !  ” 

3  Sulpic.  Sever.  Dial.  II. 

4  In  Mag.  Bib.  Pat.  T.  Y.  P.  n.  pp. 
652,  658. 

5  Gregor.  P.P.  I.  Regist.  Lib.  xi. 
Epist.  lxiv.  Respons.  10  ;  Lib.  in.  Epist. 
lxv. 


48 


THE  ANTE -N I  GENE  CHURCH. 


from  this  which  is  drawn  by  the  Penitential  of  Theodore,  when  it 
commands  those  who  contract  a  first  marriage  to  abstain  from  enter¬ 
ing  a  church  for  thirty  days,  after  which  they  are  to  perform  penance 
for  forty  more;  while  a  digamus  is  subjected  to  penance  for  a  year, 
and  a  trigamus,  or  one  oftener  married,  for  seven  years.1  When 
marriage  was  thus  regarded  as  a  sin,  we  can  scarcely  be  surprised  at 
the  practical  Manichaeism  of  Epiphanius  who  declares  that  the  church 
is  based  upon  virginity  as  on  its  corner-stone.2 

This  ascetic  development,  however,  was  not  destined  to  triumph 
without  occasional  efforts  at  repression.  At  the  close  of  the  third 
century,  the  highest  authorities  of  the  church  still  condemned  the 
ruthless  asceticism,  which  was  subsequently  glorified  as  the  loftiest 
achievement  of  Christian  virtue.  Thus  in  the  Apostolic  Constitu¬ 
tions,  the  influence  of  Manichaeism  and  its  kindred  sects  is  as  yet 
only  manifested  by  the  opposition  aroused  to  their  doctrines ;  and  the 
necessity  of  that  opposition  is  indicated  by  the  careful  and  repeated 
declaration  of  the  purity  and  sanctity  of  the  marriage-tie,  both  as 
regards  the  priesthood  and  the  laity.  Not  less  instructive  is  the  bare 
toleration  almost  grudgingly  extended  to  vows  of  celibacy,  and  the 
cautious  restriction  which  declares  that  such  vows  are  not  to  be  held 
as  justifying  a  disparagement  of  matrimony.3  No  stronger  contrast 
can  be  looked  for  than  that  produced  by  little  more  than  a  century 
between  the  rational  piety  of  these  provisions  and  the  extravagant 
rhapsodies  of  Jerome,  Augustin,  and  Martin.  The  calm  good  sense 
of  Lactantius  also  takes  occasion  to  reprove  the  extravagance  which 
regarded  all  indulgence  of  the  natural  affections  as  a  sin  requiring 
repentance  and  pardon.  lie  assumes  indeed  that  perpetual  con¬ 
tinence,  as  being  opposed  to  the  law  of  nature,  is  not  recommended, 
but  only  permitted  by  the  Creator,  thus  reversing  the  maxims  of  the 
zealots.4  Equally  suggestive  are  the  Apostolic  Canons.  The  sixth 
of  these  pronounces  deposition  on  the  bishop  or  priest  who  separates 
himself  from  his  wife  under  pretext  of  religion;  while  the  fiftieth 
threatens  equally  rigorous  punishment  on  the  clerk  or  layman  who 
shall  abstain  from  marriage,  from  wine,  or  from  meat,  not  for  the 
purpose  of  devoting  himself  to  piety,  but  on  account  of  holding  them 
in  abomination — such  belief  being  a  slander  on  the  goodness  of  God, 


1  Theodor.  Penitent.  Lib.  I.  c.  xiv. 
1,  2,  3.  (Haddon  &  Stubbs’s  Councils, 
III.  187.) 

2  Epiphan.  Exposit.  Fid.  Cathol. 


5  Constit.  Apostol.  Lib.  iv.  c.  14; 
vi.  11,  14,  2G,  27,  28;  vm.  30. 

4  Lactant.  Instit.  Divin.  vi.  xvi. 
xxiii. 


RESTRICTIONS  ON  PAGAN  PRIESTHOOD. 


49 


and  a  calumny  on  the  perfection  of  His  works.1  Even  a  hundred 
years  later  there  is  still  an  occasional  protest  to  be  heard,  showing 
how  the  more  moderate  section  of  the  church  still  felt  the  danger  to 
which  she  was  exposed  by  intemperate  ascetic  zeal,  and  how  narrow 
wras  the  path  which  she  had  to  trace  between  orthodoxy  and  heresy. 
The  Fourth  Council  of  Carthage,  in  398,  prescribing  the  examina¬ 
tion  to  which  all  bishops-elect  wrere  to  be  subjected,  specifies  for 
inquiry  among  other  points  of  faith  questions  as  to  whether  the  can¬ 
didate  disapproves  of  marriage,  or  condemns  second  marriages,  or 
prohibits  the  use  of  meat.2  It  shows  how  readily  Manichaeism  or 
Catharism  might  lurk  in  the  asceticism  of  the  most  devout. 

The  tide,  however,  w^as  fairly  on  the  flood,  and  the  resistance  of  the 
more  reasonable  among  ecclesiastics  w^as  unavailing.  It  is  true,  that  the 
influences  which  were  now  so  powerful  could  evidently  not  be  applied 
to  the  whole  body  of  believers,  as  they  would  only  result  in  gradual 
extinction  or  in  lawless  licentiousness;  but  as  the  ecclesiastical  body 
was  perpetuated  by  a  kind  of  spiritual  generation,  it  could,  without 
hazarding  a  decrease  of  numbers,  be  subjected  to  regulations  which 
should  render  obligatory  the  asceticism  which  as  yet  had  been  optional. 
The  only  wonder,  in  fact,  is  that  this  had  not  been  earlier  attempted. 
Such  a  rule,  by  widening  the  distinction  between  laymen  and  ecclesi¬ 
astics,  would  be  grateful  to  the  growing  sacerdotalism  which  ere  long 
was  to  take  complete  possession  of  the  church.  Such  a  rule,  moreover, 
was  not  only  indicated  by  the  examples  of  Buddhism  and  Manichaeism, 
but  had  abundant  precedent  among  the  Pagans  of  the  Empire.  More 
than  one  passage  in  classical  writers  show  that  abstinence  from  women 
was  regarded  as  an  essential  prerequisite  to  certain  religious  observ¬ 
ances,  and  the  existence  of  this  feeling  among  the  primitive  Christians, 
based  upon  the  injunction  of  Ahimelech,  is  indicated  by  St.  Paul3 — 
and  this  custom,  as  sacerdotalism  developed,  and  formalism  ren¬ 
dered  the  life  of  the  minister  of  the  altar  a  ceaseless  round  of 


1  The  fiftieth  canon  was  omitted  by 
Dionysius  Exiguus,  but  was  subse¬ 
quently  admitted  by  the  church,  not¬ 
withstanding  that  it  proves  in  the  clear¬ 
est  manner  the  full  enjoyment  of  mar¬ 
riage  by  all  grades  of  the  clergy.  The 
sixth  canon  (numbered  fifth  in  the  full 
collection)  which  prohibits  the  separa¬ 
tion  of  ecclesiastics  from  their  wives, 
was  likewise  accepted,  although  in  the 
eighteenth  century  Cabassut  stigma¬ 
tizes  it  as  heretical. 


2  Cone.  Carthag.  IV.  c.  1. 

3  Thus  Tibullus  (Lib.  I.  El.  i.) — 

“Vos  quoqueabesse  procul  jubeo,  discedite 
ab  aris, 

Queis  tulit  hesterna  gaudia  nocte  Venus. 
Casta  placent  Superis.” 

Cf.  Juvenal,  vi.  534-5. — iElii  Lam- 
prid.  Alex.  Sever,  xxix. — Porphyr.  de 
Abstinent,  n.  50;  iv.  6,  7. — Arriani  de 
Epictet.  Disertt.  Lib.  in.  c.  xxi. — I. 
Cor.  vii.  5. 


4 


50 


THE  ANTE-NICENE  CHURCH. 


daily  service,  would  practically  separate  husband  and  wife.  More¬ 
over,  much  of  the  Pagan  worship  subjected  its  officials  to  general 
restrictions  of  greater  or  less  severity.  Diodorus  Siculus  states  that 
the  Egyptian  priests  were  permitted  to  have  but  one  wife,  although 
unlimited  polygamy  was  allowed  to  the  people;  while  Chocremon  the 
Stoic,  according  to  St.  Jerome,  and  Plutarch  indicate  that  they  were 
obliged  to  observe  entire  continence.  The  castration  of  the  Galli, 
the  priests  of  Rhea  at  Hierapolis,  though  explained  by  the  myth  of 
Attys,  was  evidently  only  a  survival  of  the  fierce  asceticism  which 
counterbalanced  the  licentiousness  of  the  older  Phenician  worship. 
The  rites  of  the  Gaditanian  Hercules  were  conducted  by  ministers 
obliged  to  observe  chastity,  and  the  foot  of  woman  was  not  permitted 
to  pollute  the  sacred  precincts  of  the  temple;  while  the  priestesses  of 
Gea  Eurysternus  at  iEgm  were  required  to  preserve  the  strictest 
celibacy.1  The  hierophants  of  Demeter  in  Athens,  were  obliged  to 
maintain  unsullied  continence.  The  priestesses  of  the  Delphic 
Apollo,  the  Achaian  Hera,  the  Scythian  Artemis,  and  the  Thespian 
Heracles  were  virgins.  In  Africa,  those  of  Ceres  were  separated  from 
their  husbands  with  a  rigor  of  asceticism  which  forbade  even  a  kiss 
to  their  orphaned  children ;  while  in  Rome  the  name  of  Vestal  has 
passed  into  a  proverb,  although  it  is  true  that  while  they  were  only 
six  or  seven  in  number,  the  distinguished  honors  and  privileges  ac¬ 
corded  to  them  were  insufficient  to  induce  parents  to  devote  them  to 
the  holy  service,  and  there  was  difficulty  in  keeping  the  ranks  filled.2 

The  earliest  recorded  attempt  by  the  church  to  imitate  these  re¬ 
strictions,  was  made  in  305  by  the  Spanish  council  of  Elvira,  which 
declared,  in  the  most  positive  manner,  that  all  concerned  in  the 
ministry  of  the  altar  should  maintain  entire  abstinence  from  their 
wives  under  pain  of  forfeiting  their  positions.  It  further  endeavored 
to  put  an  end  to  the  scandals  of  the  Agapetsc,  or  female  companions 
of  the  clergy,  which  the  rigor  of  this  canon  was  so  well  fitted  to 
increase,  by  decreeing  that  no  ecclesiastic  should  permit  any  woman 
to  dwell  with  him,  except  a  sister  or  a  daughter,  and  even  these  only 


1  Diod.  Sicul.  i.  80. — Hieron.  adv. 
Jovin.  ii.  13. — Pint,  do  Isid.  et  Osirid. 
2. — Lucian,  do  Syria  Deaxv. — Sil.  Ital. 
Punicor.  in.  21-8. — Cf.  Virg.  JEncid. 
vi.  6G1. — Pausan.  vn.  xxv.  8.  Egyp¬ 
tian  customs  in  this  respect  may  perhaps 
he  traced  to  the  vow  of  continence 
made  by  Isis  after  the  death  of  her 
husband-brother,  Osiris  ('Diod.  Sicul.  i. 
27).  The  Emperor  Julian’s  neo-pla¬ 


tonic  explanation  of  the  Syrian  asceti¬ 
cism  (Orat  V.)  is  not  without  analogy 
to  some  of  the  rhapsodies  of  the  fathers 
in  the  praise  of  virginity. 

2  Juliani  Imp.  Orat.  V. — Tertull.  de 
Monogam.  xvii. ;  ad  Uxorem  i.  6 ;  de 
Exhort.  Castit.  xiii. — Hieron.  adv. 
Jovin.  i.  2G. — Pausan.  ix.  xxvii.  5. — 
Sucton.  Octav.  xxxviii. 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  ENFORCED  CELIBACY. 


51 


when  bound  by  a  vow  of  virginity.1  This  was  simply  the  legislation 
of  a  local  synod,  and  its  canons  were  not  entitled  to  respect  or  obedi¬ 
ence  beyond  the  limits  of  the  churches  directly  represented.  Its 
action  may  not  improbably  be  attributed  to  the  commanding  influence 
of  one  of  its  leading  members,  Osius,  Bishop  of  Cordova,  and  that 
action  had  no  result  in  inducing  the  church  at  large  to  adopt  the  new 
rule,  for  some  ten  years  later  were  held  the  more  important  councils 
of  Ancyra  and  Neocaesarea,  and  the  absence  of  any  allusion  to  it  in 
their  proceedings  seems  to  fix  for  us  the  discipline  of  the  period  in 
this  respect,  at  least  in  the  East.  By  the  canons  of  Ancyra  we 
learn  that  marriage  in  orders  was  still  permitted,  as  far  as  the 
diaconate,  provided  the  postulant  at  the  time  of  ordination  declared 
his  desire  to  enjoy  the  privilege  and  asserted  his  inability  to  remain 
single.  This  is  even  less  stringent  than  the  rule  quoted  above  from 
the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  and  proves  incontestably  that  there  was 
no  thought  of  imposing  any  restriction  upon  the  intercourse  between 
the  married  clergy  and  their  wives.  By  the  council  of  Neocmsarea 
it  was  provided  that  a  priest  marrying  in  orders  should  be  deposed, 
but  a  heavier  punishment  was  reserved  for  what  was  then,  in  reverse 
of  the  standard  of  later  times,  regarded  as  the  greater  sin  of  licen¬ 
tiousness.  That  no  interference  was  intended  by  this  with  the  rela¬ 
tions  existing  between  those  who  had  married  in  the  lower  grades 
and  their  wives,  is  shown  by  another  canon  which  deprives  of  his 
functions  any  priest  who  submitted  to  the  commission  of  adultery  by 
his  wife  without  separating  from  her — being  a  practical  extension  of 
the  Levitical  rule,  now  by  common  consent  adopted  as  a  portion  of 
ecclesiastical  discipline.2  Yet,  even  in  the  East,  there  was  a  growing 
tendency  to  more  rigid  asceticism  than  this,  for,  about  the  same 
period,  we  find  Eusebius  stating  that  it  is  becoming  in  those  who  are 
engaged  in  the  ministry  of  God,  to  abstain  from  their  wives,  though 
his  argument  in  justification  of  this  is  based  upon  the  multiplicity  of 
occupation,  which  in  civilized  society  rendered  it  desirable  for  those 
enlisted  in  the  service  of  the  church  to  be  relieved  from  family  cares 
and  anxieties.3 


1  Concil.  Eliberitan,  can.  27,33. — The 
29th  canon  of  the  first  council  of  Arles 
held  in  314,  if  genuine,  marks  the  ex¬ 
tension  of  the  movement  eastward,  hut 
as  it  is  contained  in  hut  one  MS.,  Mansi 
supposes  it  probably  to  belong  to  some 
subsequent  and  forgotten  synod.  It  is 
almost  identical  with  Concil.  Telensis 


ann.  386  can.  9;  and,  whatever  be  its 
date,  its  phraseology  evidently  indicates 
that  it  records  the  first  introduction  of 
the  rule  in  its  locality. 

2  Concil.  Ancyran.  ann.  314  can  9. — 
Concil.  Neocfesar.  ann.  314  can  1,  8. 

3  Euseb.  Demonstr.  Evang.  i.  ix. 


UNIVERSITY  Of 

h-LINOIS 


III. 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  NIC^EA. 


Thus  far  the  church  had  grown  and  strengthened  without  any 
recognized  head  or  acknowledged  legislative  power.  Each  patriarch 
or  metropolitan,  surrounded  by  his  provincial  synod,  established  regu¬ 
lations  for  his  own  region,  with  no  standard  but  the  canon  of  Scrip¬ 
ture,  being  responsible  only  to  the  opinion  of  his  compeers,  who 
might  refuse  to  receive  his  clergy  to  communion.  Under  this  demo¬ 
cratic  autonomy  the  church  had  outlived  persecution,  had  repudiated 
and  cast  out  innumerable  successive  heresies,  and,  thanks  to  external 
pressure,  had  managed  to  preserve  its  unity.  The  time,  however, 
had  now  come  for  a  different  order  of  things.  Constantine,  following 
the  dictates  of  his  unerring  political  sagacity,  allied  himself  with  the 
Christians  and  professed  conversion;  and  Christianity,  powerful  even 
when  merely  existing  on  sufferance,  became  the  religion  of  the  state. 
As  such,  the  maintenance  of  its  unity  was  a  political  necessity,  to 
accomplish  which  required  some  central  power  entitled  to  general 
respect  and  implicit  obedience.  The  subtle  disputations  concerning 
the  fast-spreading  Arian  heresy  were  not  likely  to  be  stilled  by  the 
mere  ipse  dixit  of  any  of  the  Apostolic  Sees,  nor  by  the  secular  wis¬ 
dom  of  crown  lawyers  and  philosophic  courtiers.  A  legislative  tri¬ 
bunal,  which  should  be  at  once  a  court  of  last  appeal  and  a  senate 
empowered  to  enact  laws  of  binding  force,  as  the  final  decisions  of 
the  Church  Universal,  was  not  an  unpromising  suggestion.  Such 
an  assemblage  had  hitherto  been  impossible,  for  the  distances  to  be 
traversed  and  the  expenses  of  the  journey  would  have  precluded  an 
attendance  sufficiently  numerous  to  earn  the  title  of  (Ecumenic;  but 
an  imperial  rescript  which  put  the  governmental  machinery  of  posts 
at  the  service  of  the  prelates  could  smooth  all  difficulties,  and  enable 
every  diocese  to  send  its  representative.  In  the  year  325,  therefore, 
the  First  General  Council  assembled  at  Nicsea.  With  the  fruit- 


MEANING  OF  THE  NICENE  CANON. 


53 


lessness  of  its  endeavors  to  extinguish  the  Arian  controversy  we  have 
nothing  to  do,  but  in  its  legislative  capacity  its  labors  had  an  influence 
upon  our  subject  which  merits  a  closer  examination  than  would  ap¬ 
pear  necessary  from  the  seemingly  unimportant  nature  of  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  themselves. 

With  the  full  belief  that  the  canons  of  a  general  council  were  the 
direct  operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  they  were  of  course  entitled  to 
unquestioning  reverence,  and  those  of  Nicaea  have  always  been  re¬ 
garded  as  of  special  and  peculiar  authority,  cutting  ofl*  all  debate  on 
any  question  to  which  they  might  be  applicable.  The  third  of  the 
series  has  been  the  main  reliance  of  sacerdotal  controversialists,  and 
has  been  constantly  appealed  to  as  the  unanswerable  justification  for 
enforcing  the  rule  of  discipline  which  enjoined  celibacy  on  all  ad¬ 
mitted  to  holy  orders.  Its  simple  phraseology  would  hardly  seem  to 
warrant  such  conclusion.  “The  Great  Synod  has  strictly  forbidden 
to  bishop,  priest,  and  deacon,  and  to  every  ecclesiastic,  to  have  a 
‘subintroductam  mulierem,’  unless  perhaps  a  mother,  a  sister,  an 
aunt,  or  such  person  only  as  may  be  above  suspicion.”1 

This  is  the  only  allusion  to  the  subject  in  the  Nicene  canons.  As 
it  does  not  include  wives  among  those  exempted  from  the  prohibition 
of  residence,  we  can  hardly  be  surprised  that  those  who  believe 
celibacy  to  be  of  apostolic  origin  should  assume  that  it  was  intended 
to  pronounce  an  absolute  separation  between  husband  and  wife.  As 
the  Council  of  Elvira,  however,  contains  the  only  enunciation  of  such 
a  rule  previous  to  that  of  Nicsea,  and  as  those  of  Ancyra  and  Neocrn- 
sarea  and  the  Apostolic  Constitutions  and  Canons,  directly  or  indi¬ 
rectly,  allow  the  conjugal  relations  of  ecclesiastics  to  remain  undis¬ 
turbed,  we  are  certainly  justified  in  assuming  the  impossibility  that 
an  innovation  of  so  much  importance  would  be  introduced  in  the  dis¬ 
cipline  of  the  universal  church  without  being  specifically  designated 
and  commanded  in  terms  which  would  admit  of  no  misunderstanding. 
That  the  meaning  of  the  canon  is  really  and  simply  that  alone  which 
appears  on  the  surface — to  put  an  end  to  the  disorders  and  scandals 


1  I  give  the  version  of  Dionysius 
Exiguus  :  ‘ 1  Interclixit  per  omnia  magna 
sy nodus,  non  episcopo,  non  presbytero, 
non  diacono,  nec  alicui  omnino  qui  in 
clero  est,  licere  subintroductam  habere 
mulierem  ;  nisi  forte  matrem,  aut  soro- 
rem,  aut  amitam,  vel  eas  tantum  per¬ 
sonas  quae  suspiciones  elfugiunt." 

An  Arabic  version  of  the  Nicene  ca¬ 


nons  specially  limits  the  prohibition  to 
bishops,  and  to  unmarried  priests  and 
deacons. — 11  Decernimus  ut  episcopi  non 
habitent  cum  mulieribus.  .  .  .  Idem 

decernitur  de  omni  sacerdote  coelibe, 
idemque  de  diaconis  qui  sine  uxore 
sunt."  (Harduin.  Concil.  I.  4G3.) — 
This  expresses  nearly  the  discipline  of 
the  Greek  church. 


54 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  NIC^A. 


arising  from  the  improper  female  companions  of  unmarried  priests — 
is,  moreover,  I  think,  susceptible  of  easy  demonstration. 

The  term  “  subintroducta  mulier” — ywjj  cweioanTo- — is  almost  in¬ 
variably  used  in  an  unfavorable  sense,  and  is  equivalent  to  the 
“foemina  extranea,”  and  nearly  to  the  “focaria”  and  “concubina” 
of  later  times,  as  well  as  to  the  “agapeta”  and  udilecta”  of  earlier 
date.  We  have  already  seen  how  Cyprian,  seventy-five  years  before, 
denounced  the  agapetoe  who  even  then  were  so  common,  and  whose 
companionship  proved  so  disastrous  to  all  parties,  but  the  custom  con¬ 
tinued,  and  its  evil  consequences  became  more  and  more  openly  and 
shamelessly  displayed.  In  314  the  council  of  Ancyra  denounced  it 
in  terms  implying  its  public  recognition.1  At  the  close  of  the  same 
century,  Jerome  still  finds  in  it  ample  material  for  his  fiery  indigna¬ 
tion;  and  his  denunciations  manifest  that  it  was  still  a  corroding 
cancer  in  the  purity  of  the  church,  prevailing  to  an  extent  that  ren¬ 
dered  its  suppression  a  matter  of  the  utmost  importance.2  The  testi¬ 
mony  of  Epiphanius  is  almost  equally  strong,  and  shows  that  it  was 
a  source  of  general  popular  reproach.3  Such  a  reform  was  therefore 
well  worthy  the  attention  of  the  Nicene  fathers,  and  that  this  was 
the  special  object  of  the  canon  is  indicated  by  Jerome  himself,  who 
appeals  to  it  as  the  authority  under  which  an  ecclesiastic  refusing  to 
separate  himself  from  his  agapeta  could  he  punished;  it  was  to  be 
read  to  the  offender,  and  if  he  neglected  obedience  to  its  commands, 
he  was  to  be  anathematized.4 

That  it  had  no  bearing  upon  the  wives  of  priests  can  moreover 
be  proved  by  several  reasons.  The  restriction  on  matrimony  has 
never  at  any  time  extended  below  the  subdiaconate,  the  inferior 
grades  of  the  secular  clergy  having  always  been  free  to  live  with 
their  wives,  even  in  the  periods  of  the  most  rigid  asceticism.  The 
canon,  however,  makes  no  distinction.  Its  commands  are  applicable 


1  Concil.  Ancyrens.  can.  18. 

2  Pudet  dicere,  proh  nefas!  triste  sed 

verum  est.  Unde  in  ecclesias  Agapet- 
arum  pestis  introiit?  unde  sine  nuptiis 

aliud  nomen  uxorum  ?  immo  unde 
novum  concubinarum  genus  ?  Plus 
ioferam.  Unde  meretrices  univira? 
eudem  domo,  uno  cubiculo  saepe  tenen- 
tur  et  lectulo :  et  suspiciosos  nos  vocant 
si  aliquid  extimemus.  Frater  sororem 
virginem  deserit,  ccelibum  spernit  virgo 
germanum,  fratrem  quierit  extraneum  : 
et  cum  in  eodem  proposito  esse  se  simu- 


leut,  quaerunt  alienorum  spiritale  sola¬ 
tium,  ut  domi  habeant  carnale  commer- 
cium.  (Epist.  xxn.  ad  Eustoch.  c.  6.) 
It  should  be  observed  that  celibacy  had 
become  the  rule  of  the  church  at  the 
time  when  Jerome  wrote  thus. 

3  Accusant  nimirum  eos  qui  in  ec- 
clesia  dilectas  appellatas,  aliunde  intro- 
ductas  ac  cohabitantes  fceminas  habent. 
— Panar.  Haeres.  LXIII. 

4  Hieron.  Epist.  ad  Oceanuin  de  Yit. 
Cleric. 


MEANING  OF  THE  NICENE  CANON. 


55 


“  alicui  omnino  qui  in  clero  est.”  To  suppose,  therefore,  that  it 
was  intended  to  include  wives  in  its  restriction  is  to  prove  too  much 
— the  reductio  ad  absurdum  is  complete.1  Equally  convincing  is 
the  fact  that  when,  towards  the  close  of  the  century,  the  rule  of  celi¬ 
bacy  and  separation  was  introduced,  and  Siricius  and  Innocent  I. 
ransacked  the  Gospels  for  texts  of  more  than  doubtful  application 
with  which  to  support  the  innovation,  they  made  no  reference  what¬ 
ever  to  the  Nicene  canon.2  Had  it  been  understood  at  that  period 
as  bearing  on  the  subject,  it  would  have  been  all-sufficient  in  itself. 
The  reverence  felt  for  the  Council  of  Nicnea  was  too  great,  and  the 
absolute  obedience  claimed  for  its  commands  was  too  willingly  ren¬ 
dered,  for  such  an  omission  to  be  possible.  That  Siricius  and  Inno¬ 
cent  should  not  have  adduced  it  is  therefore  proof  incontrovertible 
that  it  was  as  yet  construed  as  directed  solely  against  the  improper 
companions  of  the  clergy.  If  further  evidence  to  the  same  effect 
be  required,  it  may  be  found  in  a  law  of  Ilonorius,  promulgated  in 
420,  in  Avhich,  while  forbidding  the  clergy  to  keep  “mulieres  ex- 
tranege”  under  the  name  of  “sorores,”  and  permitting  only  mothers, 
daughters,  and  sisters,  he  adds  that  the  desire  for  chastity  does  not 
prohibit  the  residence  of  wives  whose  merits  have  assisted  in  render¬ 
ing  their  husbands  worthy  of  the  priesthood.3  The  object  of  the 
law  is  evidently  to  give  practical  force  and  effect  to  the  Nicene  canon, 
and  the  imperial  power  under  Honorius  had  sunk  to  too  low  an  ebb 
for  us  to  imagine  the  possibility  of  his  venturing  to  tamper  with  and 
overrule  the  decrees  of  the  most  venerable  council.4  Even  in  the 
sixth  century  the  Nicene  canon  was  not  yet  considered  to  have  the 
meaning  subsequently  attributed  to  it,  for  otherwise  there  would  have 
been  no  necessity  of  inserting  a  provision  prohibiting  the  marriage  of 
priests  in  the  account  forged  at  that  time  of  a  Roman  council  said  to 
have  been  held  by  Silvester  I.5 


1  When,  during  the  demoralization 
of  the  tenth  century,  the  council  of 
Augsburg  made  a  spasmodic  effort  to 
revive  the  neglected  rule  of  celibacy, 
it  endeavored  to  include  the  lower 
orders  of  the  clergy  within  its  scope. 
Ratramnus  of  Corvey  also  does  not  fail 
to  point  out  that  such  was  the  incon¬ 
trovertible  meaning  of  the  Nicene 
canon,  which  in  his  time  was  univer¬ 
sally  considered  to  refer  to  marriage. 

2  Siricii  Epist.  2. — Innocent,  ad  Vic- 
tricium,  ad  Exuperium,  &c. 


3  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  ii.  1.  44. 

4  The  learned  and  orthodox  Zaccaria, 
concludes  that  the  Nicene  canon  was 
only  intended  to  forbid  the  irregular  con¬ 
nexions  with  agapetue,  whence  he  in¬ 
geniously  argues  that  as  the  Council  of 
Nicaea  did  not  in  any  way  forbid  priestly 
marriage,  the  origin  of  the  rule  of  celi¬ 
bacy  is  to  be  assigned  to  the  Apostles. — 
Storia  Polemica,  p.  90. 

5  Pseudo-Concil.  Roman,  sub.  Silvest. 
can.  xix.  (Migne’s  Patrol.  VIII.  840.) 


56 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  NICJEA. 


If  the  proof  thus  adduced  be  as  convincing  as  it  appears  to  me, 
the  story  of  Paphnutius  is  not  so  important  as  to  deserve  the  amount 
of  controversy  that  has  been  expended  upon  it,  and  a  brief  reference 
is  all  that  seems  necessary.  Socrates  and  Sozomen  relate  that  while 
the  canons  of  the  council  were  under  consideration,  some  of  the 
fathers  desired  to  introduce  one  interdicting  all  intercourse  between 
those  in  orders  and  their  wives.  Whereupon  Paphnutius,  an  Egyp¬ 
tian  bishop,  protested  against  the  heavy  burden  to  be  thus  imposed 
upon  the  clergy,  quoting  the  well-known  declaration  of  St.  Paul  to 
the  Hebrews  respecting  the  purity  of  the  marriage-bed.  The  influ1- 
ence  of  St.  Paphnutius  was  great,  for  he  was  a  confessor  of  peculiar 
sanctity ;  the  loss  of  his  right  eye  bore  testimony  to  the  severity 
of  the  persecutions  which  he  had  endured,  and  his  immaculate 
chastity,  preserved  from  boyhood  in  a  monastery,  rendered  his  motives 
and  his  impartiality  on  the  subject  unimpeachable.  The  bishops, 
who  had  been  on  the  point  of  accepting  the  proposed  canon,  were 
convinced,  and  the  project  was  abandoned.1 

If  this  account  be  true,  it  of  course  follows  that  the  third  canon 
has  no  bearing  on  the  wives  of  ecclesiastics,  and  that  the  enforcement 
of  celibacy  dates  from  a  later  period  than  that  of  the  council.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  when  the  Nicene  canon  was  found  necessary  to  give 
authority  to  the  rule,  it  became  requisite  to  discredit  the  story  of 
Paphnutius.  The  first  attempt  to  do  this,  which  has  come  under 
my  observation,  occurred  during  the  fierce  contentions  aroused  by 
the  efforts  of  Gregory  VII.  to  restore  the  almost  forgotten  law  of 
celibacy.  Bernald  of  Constance  has  left  a  record  of  a  discussion 
held  by  him  in  1076  with  Alboin,  a  zealous  defender  of  sacerdotal 
marriage,  in  which  the  authenticity  of  the  story  is  hotly  contested.2 
Bernald’s  logic  may  be  condensed  into  the  declaration  that  he  consid¬ 
ered  it  much  more  credible  that  Sozomen  was  in  error  than  that  so  holy 
a  man  as  St.  Paphnutius  could  have  been  guilty  of  such  blasphemy. 
No  reason  whatever  was  vouchsafed  when  Gregory  VII.  caused  the 
story  to  be  condemned  in  the  Synod  of  Rome  of  1079.3  In  spite 
of  this,  Pius  IV.,  in  1564,  admitted  its  authenticity  in  his  epistle  to 
the  German  princes  who  had  requested  of  him  the  concession  of 


1  Socrat.  H.  E.  Lib.  i.  c.  11. — Sozo¬ 
men.  H.  E.  Lib.  i.  c.  22. 

2  Bernald.  Altercat.  de  Incont.  Sa- 

cerd. 


3  Monumenta  Gregoriana  (Migne’s 
Patrol  T.  CXLVIII.  p.  1378). 


STORY  OF  PAPHNUTIUS. 


57 


sacerdotal  marriage.1  Later  writers,  from  Bellarmine  down,  have, 
however,  entered  into  elaborate  arguments  to  prove  its  impossibility. 
They  rest  their  case  principally  on  the  assertion  of  the  existence  of 
celibacy  as  a  rule  anterior  to  the  council,  and  on  its  enforcement 
afterwTards;  on  the  fact  that  Socrates  and  Sozomen  flourished  a  little 
more  than  a  century  after  the  council,  and  that  they  are  therefore 
untrustworthy;  and  that  the  name  of  St.  Paphnutius  does  not  ap¬ 
pear  in  the  acts  of  the  council.  To  the  first  of  these  objections  the 
preceding  pages  afford,  I  think,  a  sufficient  answer ;  to  the  second  it 
can  only  be  replied  that  we  must  be  content  with  the  best  testimony 
attainable,  and  that  there  is  none  better  than  that  of  the  two  his¬ 
torians,  whose  general  truthfulness  and  candor  are  acknowledged;2 
and  to  the  third  it  may  be  remarked  that  of  the  818  bishops  present, 
but  222  affixed  their  signatures  to  the  acts,  while  Rufinus  and  Theo- 
doret  both  expressly  assert  that  Paphnutius  was  present.3  That  the 
statement  was  not  discredited  until  controversialists  found  it  desirable 
to  do  so,  is  shown  by  its  retention  in  the  full  account  of  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  of  the  council  by  Gelasius  of  Cyzicus,  in  the  fifth  century, 
and  also  by  its  repetition  in  the  “Historia  Tripartita,”  a  condensa¬ 
tion  of  the  narratives  of  Socrates,  Sozomen,  and  Theodoret,  compiled 
in  the  sixth  century  by  Cassiodorus,  whose  irreproachable  orthodoxy 
would  hardly  have  permitted  him  to  give  it  currency  if  it  had  then 
been  considered  as  blasphemous  as  the  writers  of  the  eleventh  century 
would  have  us  believe.  In  fact,  the  learned  and  orthodox  Christian 
Wolff,  in  his  great  work  on  the  Councils,  rejects  as  trifling  the  asser¬ 
tion  that  the  story  of  Paphnutius  is  fictitious.  His  theory  of  the 
whole  matter  is  that  the  western  church  endeavored  to  subject  the 
eastern  to  its  views  on  the  celibacy  required  of  the  priesthood ;  that 
the  effort  failed,  in  consequence  of  the  opposition  of  Paphnutius,  and 
that  the  canon  adopted  had  reference  merely  to  the  scandals  of  the 
Agapetae.4 


1  Verum  quidem  est,  quod  ob  rainis- 
trorum  Dei  defectum  in  primitiva  eccle- 
sia  conjugati  admittebantur  ad  sacerdo- 
tium,  ut  ex  canonibus  apostolorum  et 
Paphnutii  responso  liquet,  et  in  Concilio 
Nicaeno. — (Respons.Pii.  IV .op.  Le  Plat, 
Concil.  Trident.  Monument.  VI.  337.) 

2  Sed  prae  caeteris  omnibus  Socrates 
et  Sozomenus  ac  Theodoretus  totius 
antiquitatis  judicio  celebrati  sunt,  qui 
ab  iis  temporibus  exorsi,  in  quibus 
Eusebius  scribendi  finem  fecerat,  ad 


Theodosii  junioris  tempora  opus  suum 
perduxerunt. — H.  Valesii  Praefat. 

3  Theodoret.  Hist.  Eccles.  Lib.  i.  c.  7. 

So  also  Rufinus  (Hist.  Eccles.  Lib.  x. 

c.  4)  :  “  Fuit  praeterea  in  illo  concilio 
et  Paphnutius  homo  Dei,  episcopus 
JEgypti  partibus,  confessor,  etc.,”  but 
he  makes  no  allusion  to  the  incident 
related  by  Socrates  and  Sozomen. 

4  Act.  Concil.  Nicaen.  ir.  xxxii.  (Har- 
duin.  I.  438). — Hist.  Tripart.  n.13. — 
Chr.  Lupi  Opp.  I.  239  (Venet.  1724). 


58 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  NICiEA. 


Various  indications  have  been  collected  by  controversialists  to 
show  that  for  some  time  after  the  council  of  Nicaea  no  interference 
was  attempted  with  married  priests.  Of  these,  one  or  two  will  suffice. 

St.  Athanasius,  whose  orthodoxy  it  would  not  be  prudent  for  any 
one  to  question,  and  whose  appearance  during  his  diaconate  at  the 
council  of  Nicaea  first  attracted  general  attention  to  his  commanding 
abilities,  has  left  us  convincing  testimony  as  to  the  perfect  freedom 
allowed  during  his  time  to  all  classes  of  ecclesiastics.  An  Egyptian 
monk  named  Dracontius  had  been  elected  to  an  episcopate,  and  hesi¬ 
tated  to  accept  the  dignity  lest  its  duties  should  prove  incompatible 
with  the  fulfilment  of  his  vows.  To  remove  these  scruples,  Athana¬ 
sius  addressed  him  an  epistle  containing  various  arguments,  among 
which  was  the  declaration  that  in  his  new  sphere  of  action  he  would 
find  no  difficulty  in  carrying  out  whatever  rules  he  might  prescribe 
for  himself.  “Many  bishops,”  said  the  Saint,  “have  not  contracted 
matrimony,  while  on  the  other  hand,  monks  have  become  fathers. 
Again,  we  see  bishops  who  have  children,  and  monks  who  take  no 
thought  of  having  posterity.”1  The  tenor  of  the  whole  passage  is 
such  as  to  show  that  no  laws  had  yet  been  enacted  to  control  indi¬ 
vidual  action  in  such  matters,  and  while  rigid  asceticism  was  largely 
practised,  it  was  to  be  admired  as  the  result  of  private  conviction, 
and  not  as  mere  enforced  submission  to  an  established  rule. 

Testimony  equally  unequivocal  is  afforded  by  the  case  of  St. 
Gregory  Theologos,  Bishop  of  Nazianzum.  He  relates  that  his 
father,  who  was  likewise  a  St.  Gregory  Bishop  of  Nazianzum,  was 
converted  about  the  period  of  the  Nicene  council,  and  was  shortly 
afterwards  admitted  to  the  priesthood  and  created  bishop.  His 
mother,  St.  Nonna,  prayed  earnestly  for  male  issue,  saw  her  future 
son  St.  Gregory  in  a  prophetic  vision,  and  devoted  him,  before  his 
birth,  to  the  service  of  God.  That  this  occurred  after  his  father’s 
admission  to  orders  is  shown  by  the  address  which  he  represents  the 
latter  as  making  to  him,  “I  have  passed  more  years  in  offering  the 
sacrifice  than  measure  your  whole  life,”2  while  the  birth  of  a  younger 
son,  Caesarius,  shows  that  conjugal  relations  continued  undisturbed. 
St.  Gregory  evidently  felt  that  neither  shame  nor  irregularity  attached 
to  his  birth  during  the  sacred  ministry  of  his  father. 


1  Epist.  ad  Dracontium. 

2  0 V7TU  TOGOVTOV  tKfie^ETfJ7fK(l(;  (3lOV , 
'Oaor  dirjX&e  -dvatuv  r/ioi  xpovog. 

Baronius  labors  hard  to  break  the 
force  of  this  assertion,  but  his  arguments 


seem  to  me  successfully  controverted 
by  C&lixtus.  (De  Conjug.  Cleric.  Ed. 
1783,  pp.  261-74.)  The  chapter  devoted 
to  this  question  by  Zaccaria  (Storia 
Polem.  Lib.  i.  cap.  vii.)  is  an  example 
of  desperate  special  pleading. 


IV. 


LEGISLATION. 


Thus  far  the  progress  of  asceticism  had  been  the  result  of  moral 
influence  alone.  Those  who  saw  in  the  various  forms  of  abstinence 
and  mortification  the  only  path  to  salvation,  and  those  who  may  have 
felt  that  worldly  advantages  of  power  or  reputation  would  compensate 
them  for  the  self-inflicted  restrictions  which  they  underwent,  already 
formed  a  numerous  body  in  the  church,  but  as  yet  had  not  acquired 
the  numerical  ascendency  requisite  to  enable  them  to  impose  upon 
their  brethren  the  rules  which  they  had  adopted  for  their  own 
guidance.  The  period  was  one  of  transition,  and  for  sixty  years 
after  the  council  of  Nicaea  there  was  doubtless  a  struggle  for  su¬ 
premacy  not  perhaps  the  less  severe  because  at  this  late  date  we  can 
hut  dimly  trace  its  outlines  amid  the  records  of  the  fierce  Arian  con¬ 
troversy  which  constitutes  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  time,  and 
which  absorbed  the  attention  of  writers  almost  to  the  exclusion  of 
everthing  else. 

The  first  triumph  of  the  ascetic  party  was  in  establishing  recog¬ 
nized  restrictions  on  those  who  had  voluntarily  assumed  vows  of 
celibacy.  With  them,  at  least,  the  case  was  clear.  Aspiring  to  no 
rank  in  the  church,  they  simply  dedicated  themselves  to  God,  and 
pledged  themselves  to  lives  of  abstinence.  Their  backsliding  caused 
scandal  to  the  church,  which,  if  it  were  held  responsible  in  the  eyes 
of  men  for  their  conduct,  must  necessarily  assume  the  power  to  con¬ 
trol  their  mode  of  life,  while  the  fact  of  simply  holding  them  to  the 
performance  of  vows  solemnly  undertaken  could  not  reasonably  be 
regarded  as  an  arbitrary  stretch  of  authority.  These  voluntary  vows, 
which  speedily  led  to  the  establishment  of  the  vast  fabric  of  mona- 
chism  will  form  the  subject  of  a  subsequent  section,  and  need  not  be 
further  alluded  to  here. 

Another  move  in  the  direction  of  asceticism  was  the  prohibition 


60 


LEGISLATION. 


by  the  Council  of  Laodicea  in  352  of  women  serving  as  priests  or 
presiding  over  the  churches.1  Although  in  later  Judaism  the  Temple 
service  was  confined  to  men,  the  examples  of  Deborah  and  Huldah 
show  that  in  earlier  times  women  were  considered  as  capable  of 
inspiration  and  were  sometimes  revered  as  prophets;  the  Gentiles, 
among  whom  the  infant  churches  were  founded,  had  priestesses  almost 
everywhere  actively  employed  in  the  duties  of  worship  and  sacrifice; 
and  it  would  have  been  strange  if  women,  to  whom  the  propagation 
of  the  Gospel  was  so  greatly  owing,  had  not  been  sometimes  admitted 
to  the  function  of  conducting  the  simple  services  of  the  primitive 
church.  We  learn  from  St.  Paul  that  Phoebe  was  a  deacon  (<ha/covor) 
of  the  church  at  Cenchrea,2  and  the  canon  of  Laodicea  shows  that 
until  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century  they  still  occasionally  occu¬ 
pied  recognized  positions  in  the  active  ministry  of  the  church.  They 
could  not  have  been  numerous,  or  the  references  to  them  in  the 
history  of  the  period  would  have  been  more  frequent,  and  the  enforce¬ 
ment  of  their  disability  for  divine  service  would  have  required  con¬ 
stant  repetition  in  the  canons  of  the  general  and  local  synods;  but 
unquestionably  the  growth  of  Mariolatry  and  the  adoration  of  female 
saints  would  have  sufficed  to  prevent  the  inconsistency  of  regarding 
women  as  absolutely  unfitted  for  any  function  in  public  worship,  had 
it  not  been  for  the  rising  influence  of  asceticism,  which  demanded 
the  separation  of  the  sexes,  and  insisted  upon  an  artificial  purity  in 
all  concerned  in  the  ministry  of  the  altar.  Even  as  late  as  the  tenth 
century,  so  good  a  celibatarian  as  Atto  of  Yercelli  was  perfectly  will¬ 
ing  to  assert  that  in  the  early  church,  when  the  laborers  were  few, 
women  were  admitted  to  share  in  the  ceremonies  of  divine  worship.3 

Still,  as  yet,  the  secular  clergy  were  at  liberty  to  follow  the  dictates 
of  their  own  consciences,  and  if  an  attempt  was  made  to  erect  the 
necessity  of  ascetic  abstinence  into  an  article  of  either  faith  or  disci- 


1  Concil.  Laodicens.  can.  xi. 

2  Romans,  xvi.  1.  The  number  of 
women  alluded  to  by  St.  Paul  in  this 
chapter  shows  how  active  they  were  in 
disseminating  the  faith.  Junia  he  dig¬ 
nifies  with  the  title  of  Apostle. 

3  Atton.  Vercell.  Ep>st.  viii. — Epi- 
phanius  (Haeres.  lxxix)  denies  that 
women  had  ever  been  permitted  to  rise 
beyond  the  diaconate,  and  asserts  that 
their  functions  in  that  grade  were 
simply  to  render  to  women  such  offices 


as  decency  forbade  to  men.  In  the 
West,  the  ordination  of  deaconesses 
was  prohibited  by  Concil.  Arausican. 
I.  ann.  441  can.  xxvi.  ;  Concil.  Epao- 
nens.  ann.  513  can.  xxi.,  and  Concil. 
Aurelianens.  II.  ann.  533  can.  xviii., 
on  account  of  disorders  arising  through 
the  fragility  of  the  sex,  as  was  perhaps 
not  unnatural,  after  the  adoption  of 
enforced  celibacy.  It  was  probably  for 
the  sake  of  order  that  St.  Paul  forbade 
women  from  teaching  or  asking  ques¬ 
tions  in  church  (I  Cor.  xiv.  34,  35; 
I.  Tim.  ii.  11,  12). 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  GANGEA. 


61 


pline,  the  church  was  prompt  to  stamp  it  with  the  seal  of  unequivocal 
reprobation.  Eustathius,  Bishop  of  Sebastia,  in  Cappadocia,  himself 
the  son  of  the  Bishop  of  Cappadocian  Caesarea,  Eulalius,  carried  his 
zeal  for  purity  to  so  great  an  excess  that  his  exaggerated  notions  of 
the  inferiority  of  the  married  state  trenched  closely  upon  Manichaeism, 
although  his  heretical  rejection  of  canonical  fasting  showed  that  on 
other  points  he  was  bitterly  opposed  to  the  tenets  of  that  obnoxious 
sect.  His  horror  of  matrimony  went  so  far  as  to  lead  him  to  the 
dogma  that  married  people  were  incapable  of  salvation ;  he  forbade 
the  offering  of  prayer  in  houses  occupied  by  them ;  and  he  declared 
that  the  blessings  and  sacraments  of  priests  living  with  their  wives 
were  to  be  rejected,  and  their  persons  treated  wTith  contempt.1 

There  were  not  wanting  those  to  whom  even  these  extreme  opinions 
were  acceptable,  and  Eustathius  speedily  accumulated  around  him  a 
host  of  devotees  whose  proselyting  zeal  threatened  a  stubborn  heresy. 
The  excesses  attributed  to  their  inability  to  endure  the  practical  opera¬ 
tion  of  their  leader’s  doctrines  may  be  true,  or  may  be  merely  the 
accusations  which  are  customarily  disseminated  when  it  becomes 
necessary  to  invest  schismatics  with  odium.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
orthodox  clergy  felt  the  importance  of  promptly  repressing  opinions 
which,  although  at  variance  with  the  creed  of  the  church,  were  yet 
dangerously  akin  to  the  extreme  views  of  those  wrho  were  regarded  as 
pre-eminently  holy.  Eulalius,  the  father  of  the  heresiarch,  himself 
presided  at  a  local  synod  held  at  Caesarea,  and  condemned  his  son. 
This  did  not  suffice  to  repress  the  heresy,  and  about  the  year  362  a 
provincial  council  was  assembled  at  Gangra,  where  fifteen  bishops, 
among  whom  was  Eulalius,  pronounced  their  verdict  on  Eustathius 
and  his  misguided  followers,  and  drew  up  a  series  of  canons  defining 
the  orthodox  belief  on  the  questions  involved.  That  they  were  re¬ 
ceived  by  the  church  as  authoritative  is  evident  from  their  being  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  collections  of  Dionysius  and  Isidor.  These  canons 


1  Declaratum  est  enim  hos  eosdem 
nuptias  accusare  et  docere  quod  nullus 
in  conjugali  positus  gradu  spem  habeat 
apud  Deum.  ...  In  domibus  conju- 
gatorum  nec  orationes  quidem  debere 
celebrari,  persuasisse  in  tantum  ut  eas- 
dem  fieri  vetent.  .  .  .  Presbyteros  vero 
qui  matrimonia  contraxerunt  sperni 
debere  dicunt,  nec  sacramenta  quae  ab 
eis  conficiuntur,  attingi. — Concil.  Gan- 
grens.  Procem. 

So  also  Socrates  —  “  Benedictionera 
presbyteri  habentis  uxorem,  quam  lege 


cum  esset  laicus  duxisset,  tanquam 
scelus  declinandum  praecepit.” — Hist. 
Eccles.  Lib.  n.  c.  33. 

After  tbe  specific  condemnation  of 
this  latter  doctrine  by  the  undoubtedly 
orthodox  council  of  Gangra,  it  is  some¬ 
what  remarkable  to  see  it  enunciated 
and  erected  into  a  law  of  the  church  by 
Gregory  VII.  in  his  internecine  con¬ 
flict  with  tbe  married  priests.  Thus 
the  heresy  of  one  age  becomes  tbe  re¬ 
ceived  and  adopted  faith  of  another. 


(32 


LEGISLATION. 


anathematize  all  who  refuse  the  sacraments  of  a  married  priest,  and 
who  hold  that  he  cannot  officiate  on  account  of  his  marriage ;  also 
those  who,  priding  themselves  on  their  professed  virginity,  arrogantly 
despise  their  married  brethren,  and  who  hold  that  the  duties  of  wed¬ 
lock  are  incompatible  with  salvation.1  The  whole  affords  a  singularly 
distinct  record  of  the  doctrines  accepted  at  this  period,  showing  that 
there  was  no  authority  admitted  for  imposing  restrictions  of  any  kind 
on  the  married  clergy.  It  probably  was  an  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
conservatives  of  the  church  to  restrain  their  more  progressive  brethren, 
and  they  no  doubt  gladly  availed  themselves  of  the  wild  theories  of 
Eustathius  to  stigmatize  the  extravagances  which  were  daily  becoming 
more  influential.  At  the  same  time,  they  were  careful  to  shield  them¬ 
selves  behind  a  qualified  concession  to  the  ascetic  spirit  of  the  period, 
for  in  an  epilogue  they  apologetically  declare  their  humble  admiration 
of  virginity,  and  their  belief  that  pious  continence  is  most  acceptable 
to  God.2 


In  little  more  than  twenty  years  after  this  emphatic  denunciation 
of  all  interference  with  married  priests,  we  find  the  first  absolute  com¬ 
mand  addressed  to  the  higher  orders  of  the  clergy  to  preserve  inviolate 
celibacy.  So  abrupt  a  contrast  provokes  an  inquiry  into  its  possible 
causes,  as  no  records  have  reached  us  exhibiting  any  special  reasons 
for  the  change. 

While  the  admirers  of  ascetic  virginity  became  louder  and  more 
enthusiastic  in  their  praises  of  that  blessed  condition,  it  is  fair  to 
presume  that  they  were  daily  more  sensible  of  a  lower  standard  of 
morality  in  the  ministers  of  the  altar,  and  that  their  susceptibilities 
were  more  deeply  shocked  by  the  introduction  and  growth  of  abuses. 
While  the  church  was  kept  purified  by  the  fires  of  persecution,  it 
offered  few  attractions  for  the  worldly  and  ambitious.  Its  ministry 
was  too  dangerous  to  be  sought  except  by  the  pure  and  zealous 
Christian,  and  there  was  little  danger  that  pastors  would  err  except 
from  over-tenderness  of  conscience  or  unthinking  ardor.  When,  how¬ 
ever,  its  temporal  position  was  incalculably  improved  by  its  domina- 


1  Concil.  Gangrens.  c.  4. — Si  quis  de- 
cernit  presbyterum  conjugatum  tan- 
quam  occasione  nuptiarum  quod  offerre 
non  debeat,  et  ab  ejus  oblatione  ideo 
se  nbstinet,  anathema  sit. — I  give  the 
Isidorian  version  adopted  by  Gratinn, 
Dist.  xxviii.  c.  15,  and  by  Burchard, 
Lib.  hi.  75.  That  of  Dionysius  Exi- 
guus  is  somewhat  different. 


Can.  10. — Si  quis  propter  Deum  vir- 
ginitatem  professus  in  conjugio  positos 
per  arrogantiam  vituperaverit,  anathe¬ 
ma  sit. — Can.  1  and  9  are  directed 
against  those  who  condemn  marriage, 
and  teach  that  it  airords  no  chance  of 
heaven. 

2  Concil.  Gangrens.  Epilog. 


OBJECTS  TO  BE  GAINED  BY  CELIBACY. 


63 


tion  throughout  the  empire,  it  became  the  avenue  through  which 
ambition  might  attain  its  ends,  while  its  wealth  held  out  prospects  of 
idle  self-indulgence  to  the  slothful  and  the  sensual.  A  new  class  of 
men,  dangerous  alike  from  their  talents  or  their  vices,  would  thus 
naturally  find  their  way  into  the  fold,  and  corruption,  masked  under 
the  semblance  of  austerest  virtue,  or  displayed  with  careless  cynicism, 
would  not  be  long  in  penetrating  into  the  Holy  of  Holies.  Immo¬ 
rality  must  have  been  flagrant  when,  in  370,  the  temporal  power  felt 
the  necessity  of  interfering  by  a  law  of  the  Emperor  Valentinian 
which  denounced  severe  punishment  on  ecclesiastics  who  visited  the 
houses  of  widows  and  virgins.1  When  an  increasing  laxity  of  morals 
thus  threatened  to  overcome  the  purity  of  the  church,  it  is  not  sur¬ 
prising  that  the  advocates  of  asceticism  should  have  triumphed  over 
the  more  moderate  and  conservative  party,  and  that  they  should  im¬ 
prove  their  victory  by  seeking  a  remedy  for  existing  evils  in  such 
laws  as  should  render  the  strictest  continence  imperative  on  all  who 
entered  into  holy  orders.  They  might  reasonably  argue  that  if 
nothing  else  were  gained,  the  change  would  at  least  render  the  life 
of  the  priest  less  attractive  to  the  vicious  and  the  sensual,  and  that 
the  rigid  enforcement  of  the  new  rules  would  elevate  the  character  of 
the  church  by  preventing  such  wolves  from  seeking  a  place  among 
the  sheep.  If  by  such  legislation  they  only  added  fresh  fuel  to  the 
flame ;  if  they  heightened  immorality  by  hypocrisy  and  drove  into 
vagabond  licentiousness  those  who  would  perhaps  have  been  content 
with  lawful  marriage,  they  only  committed  an  error  which  has  ever  been 
too  common  with  earnest  men  of  one  idea  to  warrant  special  surprise. 

Another  object  may  not  improbably  have  entered  into  the  motives 
of  those  who  introduced  the  rule.  The  church  was  daily  receiving 
vast  accessions  of  property  from  the  pious  zeal  of  its  wealthy 
members,  the  death-bed  repentance  of  despairing  sinners,  and  the 
munificence  of  emperors  and  prefects,  while  the  effort  to  procure 
the  inalienability  of  its  possessions  dates  from  an  early  period.2  Its 
acquisitions,  both  real  and  personal,  were  of  course  exposed  to  much 


1  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  ii.  1.  20. 

2  So  great  was  the  influx  of  wealth 
to  the  church  from  the  pious  legacies  of 
the  faithful  that  it  became  an  evil  of 
magnitude  to  the  state,  and  in  370  a 
law  of  Valentinian  pronounced  null  and 
void  all  such  testamentary  provisions 
made  by  those  under  priestly  influence 


(Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  ii.  1.  20) — 
a  provision  repeated  in  390  (Ibid.  1.  27) 
with  such  additional  details  as  show  its 
successful  evasion  during  the  interval. 
Godefroi,  in  his  notes  to  these  laws  (T. 
VI.  pp.  48-50,  GO-64),  has  collected 
much  curious  matter  bearing  on  the 
subject. 


64 


LEGISLATION. 


greater  risk  of  dilapidation  when  the  ecclesiastics  in  charge  of  its 
widely  scattered  riches  had  families  for  whose  provision  a  natural 
parental  anxiety  might  be  expected  to  override  the  sense  of  duty  in 
discharging  the  trust  confided  to  them.  The  simplest  mode  of  avert¬ 
ing  the  danger  might  therefore  seem  to  be  to  relieve  the  churchman 
of  the  cares  of  paternity,  and,  by  cutting  asunder  all  the  ties  of  family 
and  kindred,  to  hind  him  completely  and  forever  to  the  church  and 
to  that  alone.  This  motive,  as  we  shall  see,  was  openly  acknowledged 
as  a  powerful  one,  in  later  times,  and  it  no  doubt  served  as  an  argu¬ 
ment  of  weight  in  the  minds  of  those  who  urged  and  secured  the 
adoption  of  the  canon. 

It  appears  to  me  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  all  these  various 
motives  lent  additional  force  to  the  zeal  for  the  purity  of  the  church, 
and  to  the  undoubting  belief  in  the  necessity  of  perpetual  celibacy, 
which  impelled  the  popes,  about  the  year  385,  to  issue  the  first  defi¬ 
nite  command  imposing  it  as  an  absolute  rule  of  discipline  on  the 
ministers  of  the  altar.  The  question  evidently  was  one  which  largely 
occupied  the  minds  of  men,  and  the  conclusion  was  reached  progres¬ 
sively.  A  Roman  synod,  to  which  the  date  of  384  is  assigned,  an¬ 
swered  a  series  of  interrogatories  propounded  by  the  bishops  of  Gaul, 
among  which  was  one  relating  to  the  chastity  of  the  priesthood.  To 
this  the  response  was  rather  argumentatorv  and  advisory  in  its  char¬ 
acter  than  imperative ;  the  continence  of  the  higher  grades  of  eccle¬ 
siastics  was  insisted  on,  but  no  definite  punishment  was  ordered  for 
its  violation1 — and  no  maxim  in  legislation  is  better  understood  than 
that  a  law  without  a  penalty  expressed  is  practically  a  dead  letter. 
Allusion  was  made  to  previous  efforts  to  enforce  the  observance  in 
various  churches ;  surprise  was  expressed  that  light  should  be  sought 
for  on  such  a  question — for  the  Gallic  prelates  had  evidently  been  in 
doubt  respecting  it — and  numerous  reasons  were  alleged  in  a  manner 
to  show  that  the  subject  was  as  yet  open  to  argument,  and  could  not 
be  assumed  as  proved  or  be  decided  by  authority  alone.  These  reasons 
may  be  briefly  summed  up  as  consisting  of  references  to  the  well- 
known  texts  referred  to  in  a  previous  section,  together  with  a  vague 
assertion  of  the  opinion  of  the  Fathers  to  the  same  effect.  Allusion 
was  made  to  the  inconsistency  of  exhortations  to  virginity  proceeding 
from  those  who  themselves  were  involved  in  family  cares  and  duties, 

1  Synod.  Roman,  ad  Gallos  Episc.  i  assigned.  By  some  authorities  it  has 
Respons.  c.  3. — The  date  of  this  synod  been  attributed  to  398,  and  Ilardouin 
i6  not  certain,  hut  the  year  mentioned  suggests  that  it  may  even  have  been 
in  the  text  is  the  earliest  to  which  it  is  held  under  Innocent  I. 


DECRETAL  OF  SIRICIUS. 


65 


a  reasonable  view  Avhen  we  consider  how  much  of  ecclesiastical  ma¬ 
chinery  by  this  time  turned  on  monachism ;  and  the  necessity  was 
urged  of  bishops,  priests,  and  deacons  preserving  the  purity  requisite 
to  fit  them  for  the  daily  sacrifice  of  the  altar  and  the  ministration  of 
the  sacraments.  This  latter  point  was  based  upon  the  assumption  of  a 
similar  abstinence  being  imposed  by  the  old  law  on  the  Levites  during 
their  term  of  service  in  the  Temple,  and  the  example  of  the  pagan 
priesthood  was  indignantly  adduced  to  shame  those  who  could  enter¬ 
tain  a  sacrilegious  doubt  upon  a  matter  so  self-evident.1  The  con¬ 
clusion  arrived  at  was  definite,  but,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  no 
means  were  suggested  or  commanded  for  its  enforcement. 

Not  many  months  later  Pope  Damasus  died,  but  the  cause  was 
safe  in  the  hands  of  his  successor.  Scarcely  had  Siricius  ascended 
the  pontifical  throne,  when,  in  385,  he  addressed  an  epistle  to 
Himerius,  Archbishop  of  Tarragona,  expressing  his  grief  and  indig¬ 
nation  that  the  Spanish  clergy  should  pay  so  little  regard  to  the 
sanctity  of  their  calling  as  to  maintain  relations  with  their  wives. 
It  is  evident  from  the  tenor  of  the  decretal  that  Himerius  had  been 
unable  to  enforce  the  new  discipline,  and  had  appealed  to  Rome  for 
assistance  in  breaking  down  the  stubborn  resistance  which  he  had 
encountered,  for  allusion  is  made  to  some  of  the  refractory  who  had 
justified  themselves  by  the  freedom  of  marriage  allowed  to  the  Levites 
under  the  old  law,  while  others  had  expressed  their  regret  and  had 
declared  their  sin  to  be  the  result  of  ignorance.  Siricius  adopted  a 
much  firmer  tone  than  his  predecessor.  He  indulged  in  less  elabora¬ 
tion  of  argument ;  a  few  texts,  more  or  less  apposite ;  an  expression 
of  wonder  that  the  rule  should  be  called  in  question ;  a  distinct  asser¬ 
tion  of  its  application  to  the  three  grades  of  bishops,  priests,  and 
deacons;  a  sentence  of  expulsion  on  all  who  dared  to  offer  resistance, 
and  a  promise  of  pardon  for  those  who  had  offended  through  igno- 


1  “  Certe  idololatrae,  ut  impietates  ex- 
erceant  et  dgemonibus  immolent,  impe- 
rant  sibi  continentiam  muliebrem,  et  ab 
escis  quoque  se  purgari  volunt,  et  me 
interrogas  si  sacerdos  Dei  vivi  spiritu- 
alia  oblaturus  sacrificia  purgatus  per- 
petuo  debeat  esse,  an  totus  in  carne 
carnis  curam  dcbeat  facere?  ” 

If  all  the  postulates  be  granted,  the 
reasoning  is  unanswerable,  and  as  the 
precedents  of  the  Old  Testament  have 
been  relied  upon  in  all  arguments  since 
the  time  of  Siricius,  it  may  be  worth 
while  to  refer  to  the  caution  of  Ahime- 


lech  before  giving  the  shew-bread  to 
David  (I.  Sam.  21)  as  one  of  the  texts 
most  constantly  quoted,  and  to  the  resi¬ 
dence  of  Zacharias  in  the  Temple  dur¬ 
ing  his  term  of  ministration  (Luke  i. 
23),  which  was  frequently  instanced. 
These  are  certainly  more  germane  to 
the  matter  than  the  linen  breeches  pro¬ 
vided  for  Aaron  and  his  sons  (Exod. 
xxviii.  42-3),  by  which  the  Venerable 
Bede  assures  us  (De  Tabernac.  Lib.  ill. 
c.  9)  “  significatum  esse  sacerdotes  Novi 
Testamenti  aut  virgines  esse,  aut  con- 
tracta  cum  uxoribus  foedera  dissolvisse.” 


66 


LEGISLATION. 


ranee,  allowing  them  to  retain  their  positions  as  long  as  they  ob¬ 
served  complete  separation  from  their  wives,  though  even  then  they 
were  pronounced  incapable  of  all  promotion — such  was  the  first  de¬ 
finitive  canon,  prescribing  and  enforcing  sacerdotal  celibacy,  exhibited 
by  the  records  of  the  church.1 

The  confident  manner  in  which  the  law  is  thus  laid  down  as  incon¬ 
trovertible  and  absolute  might  almost  make  us  doubt  whether  it  were 
not  older  than  the  preceding  pages  have  shown  it  to  be,  if  Siricius 
had  not  confessed  the  weakness  of  the  cause  by  adopting  a  very 
different  tone  witbin  a  year.  In  386  be  addressed  the  church  of 
Africa,  sending  it  certain  canons  adopted  by  a  Roman  synod.  Of 
these  the  first  eight  relate  to  observances  about  which  there  was  at 
that  time  no  question,  and  they  are  expressed  in  the  curtest  and  most 
decisive  phraseology.  The  ninth  canon  is  conceived  in  a  spirit  totally 
different.  It  persuades,  exhorts,  and  entreats  that  the  three  orders 
shall  preserve  their  purity;  it  argues  as  to  the  propriety  and  necessity 
of  the  matter,  which  it  supports  by  various  texts,  but  it  does  not 
assume  that  the  observance  thus  enjoined  is  even  a  custom,  much  less 
a  law,  of  the  church;  it  urges  that  the  scandal  of  marriage  be  re¬ 
moved  from  the  clergy,  but  it  threatens  no  penalty  for  refusal.2 
Siricius  was  too  imperious  and  too  earnest  in  all  that  he  undertook 
for  us  to  imagine  that  he  would  have  adopted  pleading  and  entreaty 
if  he  had  felt  that  he  possessed  the  right  to  command;  nor  would  he 
have  condescended  to  beg  for  the  removal  of  an  opprobrium  if  he 
were  speaking  with  all  the  authority  of  unquestioned  tradition  to 
enforce  a  canon  which  had  become  an  unalterable  part  of  ecclesias¬ 
tical  discipline. 

It  is  observable  that  in  these  decretals  no  authority  is  quoted  later 
than  the  Apostolic  texts,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  have  hut  little 
bearing  on  the  subject.  No  canons  of  councils,  no  epistles  of  earlier 
popes,  no  injunctions  of  the  Fathers  are  brought  forward  to  strengthen 
the  position  assumed,  whence  the  presumption  is  irresistible  that 
none  such  existed,  and  we  may  rest  satisfied  that  no  evidence  has 
been  lost  that  would  prove  the  pre-existence  of  the  rule. 


1  Siricii  Epist.  i.  c.  7. — It  would  seem 
from  tli is  decretal  (cap.  8,  0, 10,  1 1 )  that 
even  the  rule  excluding  digami  was 
wholly  neglected.  Siricius  further  (cap. 
13)  urges  the  admission  of  monks  to 
holy  orders,  for  the  purpose  of  providing 
a  priesthood  vowed  to  chastity. 


2  Prseterea,  quod  dignum,  pudicum 
et  honestum  est,  suademus  ut  sacerdotes 
et  levitse  cum  uxoribus  suis  non  coeant, 
quia  in  ministerio  divino  quotidianis 
necessitatibus  occupantur.  .  .  Qua  de 
re  hortor,  moneo,  rogo,  tollatur  hoc  op¬ 
probrium  quod  potest  etiam  jure  gen¬ 
ii  litas  accusare. — Concil.  Telensis.  c.  9. 


Y. 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


Celibacy  was  but  one  of  the  many  shapes  in  which  the  rapidly 
progressing  sacerdotalism  of  Rome  was  overlaying  religion  with  a 
multitude  of  formal  observances.  That  which  in  earlier  times  had 
been  the  spontaneous  expression  of  fervid  zeal,  or  the  joyful  self- 
sacrifice  of  ardent  asceticism,  was  thus  changed  into  a  lawT,  bearing 
upon  all  alike,  and  taking  no  count  of  the  individual  idiosyncrasies 
which  might  render  the  burden  too  heavy  for  the  shoulders  of  the 
less  fiery  though  not  less  conscientious  Christian.  That  it  should 
meet  with  resistance  was  to  be  expected  when  we  consider  that  the 
local  independence  of  primitive  times  had  not  as  yet  been  crushed 
under  the  rapidly  growing  preponderance  of  the  Roman  see.  In 
fact  energetic  protests  were  not  wanting,  as  well  as  the  more  perplex¬ 
ing  stubbornness  of  passive  resistance. 

St.  Ambrose  admits  that  although  the  necessity  of  celibacy  was 
generally  acknowledged,  still,  in  many  of  the  remoter  districts,  there 
were  to  be  found  those  who  neglected  it,  and  who  justified  themselves 
by  ancient  custom,  relying  on  precautions  to  purify  themselves  for 
their  sacred  ministry.1  In  this  he  gives  countenance  to  the  tradition 
of  the  Leonistse,  simple  Christians  whose  refusal  to  adapt  themselves 
to  the  sacerdotalism,  which  was  daily  becoming  more  rigorous  and 
indispensable,  caused  their  expulsion  from  Rome,  and  who,  taking 
refuge  in  the  recesses  of  the  Cottian  Alps,  endeavored  to  preserve 
the  unadulterated  faith  of  earlier  times  in  the  seclusion  and  privation 
of  exile. 

All  who  revolted  against  the  increasing  oppression  of  the  hierarchy 
were  not,  however,  content  to  bury  themselves  in  solitude  and  silence, 


1  Quod  eo  non  praeterii  quia  in  pleris- 
que  abditioribus  locis,  cum  ministerium 
gererent,  vel  etiam  sacerdotium,  filios 
susceperent,  et  id  tanquam  usu  veteri 


defendunt,  quando  per  intervallo  dierum 
sacrificium  deferebatur.  —  Ambros.  de 
Ofliciis  Lib.  i.  c.  50. 


68 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


and  heresiarchs  sprang  up  who  waged  a  bold  but  unequal  contest. 
Bonosus,  Jovinian,  and  Yigilantius  are  the  names  which  have  reached 
us  as  the  most  conspicuous  leaders  in  the  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
turn  back  the  advancing  spirit  of  the  age,  and  of  these  Jovinian  is 
the  foremost  figure.  Bonosus,  who  was  Bishop  of  Sardica,  acquired 
a  peculiarly  sinister  notoriety,  for,  in  his  opposition  to  the  ascetic 
spirit,  he  adopted  a  heresy  of  Tertullian  and  Photinus,  and  assailed 
one  of  the  chief  arguments  of  the  admirers  of  celibacy  by  denying 
the  perpetual  virginity  of  the  Virgin;  whence  his  followers  acquired 
the  euphonious  title  of  Bonosiacs.1  For  this  he  was  denounced  by 
Pope  Siricius  with  all  the  vehemence  which  doctrines  so  sacrilegious 
were  calculated  to  excite,2  and  his  followers  were  duly  condemned  by 
the  Council  of  Capua  in  389,  while  the  tireless  pen  of  St.  Jerome 
was  called  into  requisition  to  refute  errors  so  unpardonable.3  Not¬ 
withstanding  this  they  continued  to  flourish,  for  an  epistle  of  Inno¬ 
cent  I.  to  Lawrence,  Bishop  of  Segna,  proves  that  the  error  was 


1  Tertullian  has  no  scruple  in  asserting 
— “  Et  Christum  quidum  virgo  enixa 
est,  semel  nuptura  post  partum.”  (De 
Monog.  c.  8).  This  belief  was  founded 
on  the  words  of  Matthew  (i.  25),  “ nal 
ovk  kyivuGnev  avrrjv  eoc;  ov  eteketov  viov 
hvrrj g  tuv  -jt/hototokov ,  nal  ekciTiEGE  to  ovopa 
avrov  iTjoovvy — “  And  he  knew  her  not 
till  she  had  brought  forth  her  first-born 
son;  and  he  called  his  name  Jesus.” 
The  restrictive  “till”  and  the  charac¬ 
terization  of  Jesus  as  the  first-born  of 
the  Virgin  (Though  the  latter  is  omitted 
in  the  Sinaitic  and  Vatican  MSS.)  are 
certainly  not  easily  explicable  on  any 
other  supposition  ;  nor  is  the  difficulty 
lessened  by  the  various  explanations 
concerning  the  family  of  Joseph,  by 
which  such  expressions  as  r/  pt/rt/p  avrov 
nal  oi  afiE?i(pol,  avrov — fratres  et  mater 
cjus  (Marc.  in.  xxxi.),  or  the  enumer¬ 
ation  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  in  Matt. 
xiii.  55-6,  Mark  vi.  3,  or  the  phrase 
\(iKu)ftov  rov  a(hX<t><)v  rovKvpi.ov — Jacobum 
fratrem  Domini  (Galat.  i.  19) — are  taken 
by  commentators  in  a  spiritual  sense, 
or  are  eluded  by  transferring  to  the 
Greek  a  Hebrew  idiom  which  confounds 
brothers  with  cousins.  In  the  Consti- 
tutiones  Apostolical  occurs  a  passage — 
“  Et  ego  Jacobus  frater  quidem  Christi 
secundum  carnem,  servus  autem  tan- 
quam  Dei  ” — which  seems  to  place  it  in 
an  unmistakable  light,  if  it  be  an  ex¬ 


tract  from  some  forgotten  Gospel, 
although  it  may  only  reflect  the  opin¬ 
ions  of  the  third  century  when  the 
collection  was  written  or  compiled. 

The  Bonosiacs  were  also  sometimes 
called  Helvidians. — S.  Augustin,  de 
Haeresibus  $  84.  —  Isidor.  Hispalens. 
Etymolog.  Lib.  vm.  c.  v.  $  57. 

In  an  age  which  was  accustomed  to 
such  arguments  as  ‘  ‘  per  mulierem  culpa 
successit,  per  virginem  salus  evenit  ” 
(Rescript.  Episcopp.  ad  Siricium),  it  is 
easy  to  appreciate  the  pious  horror 
evoked  by  such  blasphemous  heresies. 

St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  alludes  to 
a  belief  current  in  his  day  that  after 
the  Nativity  the  Virgin  had  to  submit 
to  an  inspection  ab  obstetrice  to  prove 
her  purity  (Stromat.  Lib.  vii.) — a  story 
which  continued  to  trouble  the  ortho¬ 
dox  until  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  Buddhists  eluded  all  these  trouble¬ 
some  questions  by  making  Queen  Maya 
die  seven  days  after  the  birth  of  Saky- 
amuni,  and  asserting  that  this  was  the 
case  with  the  mothers  of  all  the  Bud¬ 
dhas. — Rgya  Tch’er  Rol  P  (Ed.  Fou-a 
aux,  p.  100). 

2  Epist.  Siric.  ap.  Batthyani  Legg. 
Eccles.  Hungar.  T.  I.  p.  210. 

3  Hieron.  de  Perpet.  Virgin.  B.  Ma¬ 
ria)  adv.  Helvidium. 


JOVINIAN. 


69 


openly  taught  on  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Adriatic  in  the  early  part 
of  the  fifth  century;1  in  443  the  Council  of  Arles  shows  their  exist¬ 
ence  in  France  by  promising  reconciliation  to  those  who  should 
manifest  proper  repentance,  and  that  of  Orleans  as  late  as  538  still 
contains  an  allusion  to  them.2  The  belief  even  extended  to  Arabia, 
where  a  sect  professing  it  is  stigmatized  by  Epiphanius  as  Antidi- 
comarianitarians,  whose  conversion  that  worthy  bishop  endeavored  to 
secure  by  a  long  epistle,  in  which  his  labored  explanations  of  the 
stubborn  text  of  Matthew  are  hardly  more  convincing  than  his 
hearty  objurgations  of  the  blasphemous  dogma,  or  his  illustrative 
comparison  of  the  Virgin  to  a  lioness  bearing  but  one  whelp.3 

While  Jovinian  shared  in  this  particular  the  error  of  Bonosus  and 
Helvidius,  he  did  not  attach  undue  importance  to  it.  More  practi¬ 
cally  inclined,  his  heresy  consisted  principally  in  denying  the  efficacy 
of  celibacy,  and  this  he  maintained  in  Rome  itself,  with  more  zeal 
than  discretion.  Siricius  caused  his  condemnation  and  that  of  his 
associates  in  a  synod  held  about  the  year  390, 4 *  and  succeeded  in 
driving  him  to  Milan,  where  he  had  many  proselytes.  There  was  no 
peace  for  him  there.  A  synod  held  under  the  auspices  of  St.  Am¬ 
brose  bears  testimony  to  the  wickedness  of  his  doctrines  and  to  the 
popular  clamor  raised  against  him,  and  the  wanderer  again  set  forth 
on  his  weary  pilgrimage.6  Deprived  of  refuge  in  the  cities,  he  dis¬ 
seminated  his  tenets  throughout  the  country,  where  ardent  followers, 
in  spite  of  contumely  and  persecution,  gathered  around  him  and  con¬ 
ducted  their  worship  in  the  fields  and  hamlets.  The  laws  promul¬ 
gated  about  this  time  against  heresy  were  severe  and  searching,  and 
bore  directly  upon  all  who  deviated  from  the  orthodox  formulas  of 
the  Catholic  church,  yet  Jovinian  braved  them  all.  The  outraged 


1  Epist.  xx. 

2  Concil.  Arelatens.  II.  can.  17. — 
Concil.  Aurelian.  III.  can.  31. 

3  Panar.  Haeres.  78. — At  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  the  Bonosiac  heresy 
naturally  was  revived.  In  1523,  at  the 

Diet  of  Nuremberg,  the  Papal  orator 
accused  Osiander  “quod  praedicasset 

Beatam  Virginem  Mariam  post  Christi 
partum  non  mansisse  Virginem  ”  (Spal- 
atini  Annal.  ann.  1523),  but  Osiander 
found  few  followers.  At  the  Colloquy 
of  Poissy,  in  1561,  the  learned  Claude 
d’Espense,  doctor  of  Sorbonne,  in  argu¬ 

ing  that  there  were  many  things  the 


authority  of  which  rested  solely  on 
tradition,  and  yet  which  were  admitted 
as  undoubted  by  all  parties,  instanced 
“quela  Vierge  Marie  demoura  vierge 
apres  l’enfantement,  et  plusieurs  autres 
semblables  par  consequent;  ce  qui  a 
este  bailie  de  main  en  main  par  nos 
peres,  ores  qu’il  ne  so  it  escript,  n’est 
pourtant  moins  certain  et  approuve  que 
s’il  estoit  temoigne  par  PEscripture  ” 
(Pierre  de  la  Place,  Liv.  vn.). 

4  Siricii  PP.  Epist.  ii. 

6  Rescript.  Episcopp.  ad  Siricium. 
(Ilarduin.  Concil.  I.  853.) 


70 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


church  called  upon  its  most  unscrupulous  polemic,  St.  Jerome,  who 
indulged  in  the  customary  abuse  which  represented  the  schismatics 
as  indulging  in  the  grossest  promiscuous  licentiousness  and  Jovinian 
as  teaching  them  that  all  things  were  permitted  to  those  baptized  in 
Christ,  in  contradiction  to  St.  Augustin  who  admits  the  sobriety 
and  virtue  of  Jovinian,  in  spite  of  his  denying  the  efficacy  of  celi¬ 
bacy.1  All  this  was  insufficient  to  put  down  the  stubborn  schismatics, 
who  maintained  their  faith  until  the  church,  wearied  out  with  their 
obstinacy  and  unable  to  convert  or  to  silence  them,  appealed  to  the 
secular  power  for  more  efficient  assistance.  Perhaps  Jovinian’s  long 
career  of  successful  resistance  may  have  emboldened  him;  perhaps 
his  sect  was  growing  numerous  enough  to  promise  protection ;  at  all 
events,  despite  the  imperial  rescripts  which  shielded  with  peculiar 
care  the  Apostolic  city  from  the  presence  of  heretics,  Jovinian  in 
412  openly  held  assemblages  of  his  followers  in  Rome,  to  the  scandal 
of  the  faithful,  and  made  at  least  sufficient  impression  to  lead  a 
number  of  professed  virgins  to  abandon  their  vows  and  marry.2  The 
complaints  of  the  orthodox  were  heard  by  the  miserable  shadow  who 
then  occupied  the  throne  of  Augustus,  and  Honorius  applied  himself 
to  the  task  of  persecution  with  relentless  zeal.  Jovinian  was  scourged 
with  a  leaded  thong  and  exiled  to  the  rock  of  Boa,  on  the  coast  of 
Dalmatia,  while  his  followers  were  hunted  down,  deported,  and 
scattered  among  the  savage  islands  of  the  Adriatic.3 

Nor  was  this  the  only  struggle.  A  wild  shepherd  lad  named 
Yigilantius,  born  among  the  Pyrenean  valleys,  was  fortunate  enough 
to  be  the  slave  of  St.  Sulpicius  Severus,  whose  wTealth,  culture, 
talents,  and  piety  rendered  him  prominent  throughout  Southern  Gaul. 
The  earnest  character  of  the  slave  attracted  the  attention  of  the 
master;  education  developed  his  powers;  he  was  manumitted,  and 
the  people  of  his  native  Calagurris  choose  him  for  their  priest.  Sent 
by  Sulpicius  as  bearer  of  letters  to  his  friends  St.  Paulinus  at  Nola, 
and  St.  Jerome  in  his  Bethlehem  retreat,  Vigilantius  had  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  comparing  the  simple  Christianity  of  his  native  mountains 


1  Hieron.  adv.  Jovin. — Augustin,  de 
Hteres.  No.  lxxxii. 

2  Augustin.  Itetractt.  n.  xxii.  1. 

3  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  v.  1.  53. 
It  is  generally  assumed  from  this  law 
that  Jovinian  lived  until  412.  An  ex¬ 


pression  of  St.  Jerome,  however,  (adv. 
Vigilant,  cap.  i.)  would  seem  to  show 
that  he  was  already  dead  in  406,  and 
critics  have  suggested  either  that  there 
is  an  error  in  the  date  of  the  law  or 
that  another  heresiarch  is  referred  to. 


VIGILANT  IUS. 


71 


with  the  splendid  pageantry  of  Rome,  the  elegant  retirement  of  Nola, 
and  the  heated  controversialism  which  agitated  the  asceticism  of 
Bethlehem.  Notwithstanding  the  cordiality  of  their  first  acquaint¬ 
ance,  his  residence  with  Jerome  was  short.  Both  were  too  earnestly 
dogmatic  in  their  natures  for  harmony  to  exist  between  the  primitive 
Cantabrian  shepherd  and  the  fierce  apostle  of  Buddhist  and  Mazdean 
Christianity,  who  devoted  his  life  to  reconciling  the  doctrines  of  the 
Latin  church  with  the  practices  of  Manichseism.  Brief  friendship 
ended  in  a  quarrel,  and  Vigilantius  extended  his  experiences  by  a 
survey  of  Egypt,  where  the  vast  hordes  of  Nitrian  anchorites  were 
involved  in  civil  strife  over  the  question  of  Origenism.  Returning 
through  Italy,  he  tarried  in  Milan  and  among  the  Alps,  where  he 
found  the  solution  of  his  doubts  and  the  realization  of  his  ideas  in 
the  teaching  of  Jovinian.  He  had  left  Gaul  a  disciple  ;  he  returned 
to  it  a  missionary,  prepared  to  do  battle  with  sacerdotalism  in  all  its 
forms.  Not  only  did  he  deny  the  necessity  of  celibacy,  but  he  pro¬ 
nounced  it  to  be  the  fertile  source  of  impurity,  and  in  his  zeal  for 
reform  he  swept  atvay  fasting  and  maceration,  he  ridiculed  the  adora¬ 
tion  of  relics,  and  pronounced  the  miracles  wrought  at  their  altars  to  be 
the  work  of  demons;  he  objected  to  the  candles  and  incense  around  the 
shrines,  to  prayers  for  the  dead,  and  to  the  oblations  of  the  faithful.1 

No  doubt  the  decretals  of  Siricius  had  rendered  compulsory  the 
celibacy  of  the  priesthood  throughout  Gaul  and  Spain.  The  ma¬ 
chinery  of  the  hierarchy  may  readily  have  stifled  open  opposition, 
however  frequent  may  have  been  the  secret  infractions  of  tbe  rule. 
This  may  perhaps  have  contributed  to  the  success  of  Vigilantius. 
Even  his  former  master,  St.  Sulpicius  Severus,  and  St.  Exuperius, 
Bishop  of  Toulouse,  were  inclined  to  favor  his  reforms.  That  they 
spread  with  dangerous  rapidity  throughout  Gaul  from  south  to  north 
is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  404  Victricius,  Bishop  of  Rouen,  and  in 
405  St.  Exuperius  of  Toulouse  applied  to  Innocent  I.  for  advice  as 
to  the  manner  in  which  they  should  deal  with  the  new  heresy.  It 
also  counted  numerous  adherents  throughout  Spain,  among  whom 
even  some  bishops  were  enumerated.  The  alarm  was  promptly 


1  Exortus  est  subito  Vigilantius,  seu 
verius  Dormitantius,  qui  immundo 
spiritu  pugnat  contra  Christi  spiritum, 
et  mar ty rum  neget  sepulehra  vene- 
randa,  dammandas  dicat  esse  vigilias ; 
nunquam  nisi  in  Pascha  alleluia  can- 
tandum;  conti nentiam  haeresim  ;  pudi- 


citiam  libidinis  seminarium.  Et  quo- 
modo  Euphorbus  in  Pyth  agora  renatus 
esse  perhibetur,  sic  in  isto  Joviniani 
mens  prava  surrexit ;  ut  et  in  illo  et  in 
hoc  diaboli  respondere  cogamur  in- 
sidiis. — Hieron.  adv.  Vigilant,  c.  1. 


72 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


sounded,  and  the  enginery  of  the  church  was  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  hardy  heretic.  The  vast  reputation  and  authority  of  Jerome 
lent  force  to  the  coarse  invective  with  which  he  endeavored  to  over¬ 
whelm  his  whilom  acquaintance,  and  though  the  nickname  of  Dormi- 
tantius  which  he  bestowed  on  Yigilantius  was  a  sarcasm  neither  very 
severe  nor  very  refined,  the  disgusting  exaggeration  of  his  adversary’s 
tenets  in  which  he  as  usual  indulged  had  doubtless  its  destined  effect.1 
Pope  Innocent  was  not  backward  in  asserting  the  authority  of  Rome 
and  the  inviolable  nature  of  the  canon.  In  his  epistle  to  Yictricius, 
he  repeated  the  decretal  of  Siricius,  but  in  a  somewhat  more  positive 
form  ;2  while  in  the  following  year  (405)  he  confirmed  the  vacillating 
faith  of  Exuperius  by  declaring  that  any  violation  of  the  strictest 
celibacy  on  the  part  of  priest  or  deacon  subjects  the  offender  to  the 
deprivation  of  his  position.3  As  in  the  previous  effort  of  Siricius, 
however,  ignorance  is  admitted  as  an  excuse,  entitling  him  who  can 
plead  it  to  retain  his  grade  without  hope  of  preferment — and  the  test 
of  this  ignorance  is  held  to  be  the  canon  of  385.  This  latter  point 
is  noteworthy,  for  it  is  a  tacit  confession  of  the  novelty  of  the  rule, 
although  Innocent  labored  at  great  length  to  prove  both  its  antiquity 
and  necessity  from  the  well-known  texts  of  St.  Paul  and  the  Levitical 
observances.  Yet  no  intermediate  authority  was  quoted,  and  punish¬ 
ment  was  only  to  be  inflicted  on  those  who  could  be  proved  to  have 
seen  the  decretal  of  Siricius. 

The  further  career  of  Yigilantius  and  his  sectaries  is  lost  in  the 
darkness  and  confusion  attendant  upon  the  ravages  of  the  Alans  and 
Yandals  who  overran  Gaul  during  the  following  year.  We  only 
know  that  Sulpicius  and  Exuperius,  frightened  by  the  violence  of 


1  Proh  nefas !  episcopos  sui  sceleris 
dicitur  habere  consortes :  si  tamen 
episcopi  nominandi  sunt  qui  non  ordi- 
nant  diaconos  nisi  prius  uxores  duxe- 
rint;  nulli  ccelibi  eredentes  pudicitiam, 
immo  ostendentes  quam  sancte  vivant 
qui  male  de  omnibus  suspicantur;  et 
nisi  praegnantes  uxores  viderint  cleri- 
corum,  infantesque  de  ulnis  matrum 
vagientes,  Cbristi  sacramenta  non 
tribuant.  .  .  .  Hoc  docuit  Dormitan- 
tius,  libidini  fraena  permittens,  et  na- 
turalem  carnis  ardorem,  qui  in  ado- 
leseentia  plerumque  fervescit,  suis 
hortatibus  duplicans,  immo  extin- 
guens  coitu  fceminarum,  ut  nibil  sit 
quo  disteinus  a  porcis,  etc. — Hieron. 
adv.  Vigilant,  c.  2. 


2  Pneterea  quod  dignum,  pudieum 
et  honestum  est,  tenere  ecclesia  om- 
nino  debet,  ut  sacerdotes  et  levitae 
cum  uxoribus  non  misceantur  .  .  . 
Maxime  ut  vetus  regula  hoc  liabet  ut 
quisquis  corruptus  baptizatus  cleri- 
cus  esse  voluisset,  spondeat  uxorem 
omnino  non  ducere. — Innocent.  PP.  I. 
Epist.  ii.  c.  9,  10. 

3  Ut  incontinentes  in  officiis  talibus 
positi ,  omni  ecclesiastico  honore  pri- 
ventur,  nec  admittantur  ad  tale  min- 
isterium,  quod  sola  continentia  opor- 
tet  impleri. — As  for  those  who  could 
be  proved  to  have  seen  the  epistle  of 
Siricius — “  illi  sunt  modis  omnibus 
subraovendi.  ” — Innocent.  PP.  I.  Epist. 
iii.  c.  1. 


THE  AFRICAN  CHURCH. 


73 


Jerome  and  the  authority  of  Innocent,  abandoned  their  protege,  and 
we  can  presume  that,  during  the  period  of  wild  disorder  which  fol¬ 
lowed  the  irruption  of  the  Barbarians,  what  little  protection  Rome 
could  afford  was  too  consoling  to  the  afflicted  churches  for  them  to 
risk  its  withdrawal  by  resisting  on  any  point  the  daily  increasing 
pretensions  of  the  Apostolic  See  to  absolute  command.1 

The  victory  was  won,  for  with  the  death  of  Yigilantius  and  Jovinian 
ended  the  last  organized  and  acknowledged  attempt  to  stay  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  celibacy  in  the  Latin  church,  until  centuries  later,  when  the 
regulation  was  already  too  ancient  and  too  well  supported  by  tradition 
and  precedent  to  be  successfully  called  in  question. 


In  Africa  we  find  no  trace  of  open  resistance  to  the  introduction 
of  the  rule,  though  time  was  evidently  required  to  procure  its  enforce¬ 
ment.  We  have  seen  that  Siricius,  in  386,  addressed  an  appeal  to 
the  African  bishops.  To  this  they  responded  by  holding  a  council 
in  which  they  agreed  “  conscriptione  quadam”  that  chastity  should 
be  preserved  by  the  three  higher  orders.  This  apparently  was  not 
conclusive,  for  in  390  another  council  was  held  in  which  Aurelius, 
Bishop  of  Carthage,  again  introduced  the  subject.  He  recapitulated 
their  recent  action,  urged  that  the  teaching  of  the  Apostles  and 
ancient  usage  required  the  observance  of  the  rule,  and  obtained  the 
assent  of  his  brother  prelates  to  the  separation  from  their  wives  of 
those  who  wTere  concerned  in  administering  the  sacraments.2  The 
form  of  these  proceedings  shows  that  it  was  an  innovation,  requiring 
deliberation  and  the  assent  of  the  ecclesiastics  present,  not  a  simple 
affirmation  of  a  traditional  and  unalterable  point  of  discipline,  and, 
moreover,  no  penalty  is  mentioned  for  disobedience.  Little  respect, 
probably,  was  paid  to  the  new  rule.  The  third  and  fourth  councils 
of  Carthage,  held  in  397  and  398,  passed  numerous  canons  relating 
to  discipline,  prescribing  minutely  the  qualifications  and  duties  of 
the  clergy,  and  of  the  votaries  of  the  monastic  profession.  The 
absence  from  among  these  canons  of  any  allusion  to  enforced  celibacy 
would  therefore  appear  to  prove  that  it  was  still  left  to  the  conscience 


1  The  observance  of  the  rule  and 
its  effects  are  well  illustrated  in  the 
story  of  Urbicus,  Bishop  of  Clermont, 
and  his  unhappy  wife,  as  naively  re¬ 
lated  by  Gregory  of  Tours  (Hist. 
Franc.  L.  i.  c.  44). 


2  Ab  universis  episcopis  dictum  est : 
Omnibus  placet,  ut  episcopi,  presbyteri 
et  diaconi,  vel  qui  sacramenta  con- 
trectant,  pudicitiae  custodes  etiam  ab 
uxoribus  se  abstineant. — Concil.  Car- 
thag.  II.  can.  2  (Cod.  Eccles.  African, 
can.  3). 


74 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


of  the  individual.  If  this  be  so,  the  triumph  of  the  sacerdotal  party 
was  not  long  delayed,  as  might  be  expected  from  the  rising  influence 
and  authority  of  St.  Augustin,  whose  early  Manichaeism  led  him, 
after  his  conversion,  to  be  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  admirers  and 
promoters  of  austere  asceticism.  We  may  not  unreasonably  assume 
that  it  was  through  his  prompting  that  his  friend  St.  Aurelius,  at  the 
fifth  council  of  Carthage  in  401,  proposed  a  canon,  which  was  adopted, 
ordering  the  separation  of  the  married  clergy  of  the  higher  grades 
from  their  wives,  under  pain  of  deprivation  of  office.1  As  before, 
the  form  of  the  canon  shows  it  to  be  an  innovation. 

That  the  rule  was  positively  adopted  and  frequently  submitted  to 
is  shown  by  St.  Augustin,  who,  in  his  treatise  against  second  mar¬ 
riages,  states  that,  in  arguing  with  those  desirous  of  entering  upon 
those  unhallowed  unions,  he  was  accustomed  to  strengthen  his  logic 
by  citing  the  continence  of  the  clergy,  who,  however  unwillingly 
they  had  in  most  cases  been  forced  to  undertake  the  burden,  still,  by 
the  aid  of  God,  were  enabled  to  endure  it  to  the  end.2  Yet  it  is 
evident  that  its  enforcement  was  attended  with  many  difficulties  and 
much  opposition,  for,  twenty  years  later,  at  another  council  of  Car¬ 
thage,  we  find  Faustinus,  the  Papal  Legate,  proposing  that  the  three 
higher  orders  shall  be  separated  from  their  wives,  to  which  the  fathers 
of  the  council  somewhat  evasively  replied  that  those  who  were  con- 


1  Aurelius  episcopus  dixit :  Addi- 
mus  fratres  carissimi  praeterea,  cum  de 
quorundam  clericorum,  quamvis  lec- 
torum,  erga  uxores  proprias  inconti¬ 
nentia  referretur,  placuit,  quod  et  in 
diversis  coneiliis  firmatum  est,  ut  sub- 
diaconi,  qui  sacra  mvsteria  contrec- 
tant,  et  diaconi  et  presbvteri,  sed  et 
episcopi,  secundum  priora  statu  ta 
etiam  ab  uxoribus  se  contineant,  ut 
tanquam  non  habentes  videantur  esse : 
quod  nisi  fecerint,  ab  ecclesiastico 
removeantur  officio.  Ceteros  autem 
clericos  ad  hoc  non  cogi,  nisi  maturiori 
aetate.  Ab  universe  concilio  dictum 
est :  Quae  vestra  sanctitas  est  juste 
moderata,  et  sancta  et  Deo  placita 
sunt,  confirmamus. — Concil.  Carthag. 
V.  c.  3  (Cod.  Eccles.  Afric.  c.  25). 

The  councils  thus  alluded  to  are 
probably  the  Roman  Synods  under 
Damasus  and  Siricius. 

I  give  the  version  most  favored  by 
modern  critics,  but  it  should  be  ob¬ 
served  that  there  is  doubt  concerning 
several  important  points.  In  the  older 
collections  of  councils  (e.  g.  Surius, 


Ed.  1567,  T.  I.  p.  519-20)  the  canon 
indicates  no  compulsion  for  the  orders 
beneath  the  diaconate,  commencing 
“  Placuit  episcopos  et  presbyteros  et 
diaconos”  and  ending  “  Caeteros  autem 
clericos  ad  hoc  non  cogi  sed  secundum 
uniuscujusque  ecclesiae  consuetudinem 
observari  debere,”  and  this  has  proba¬ 
bility  in  its  favor,  since  the  subdiaconate 
was  not  included  in  the  restriction  for 
nearly  two  centuries  after  this  period, 
and  the  lower  grades  were  never  sub¬ 
jected  to  the  rule. 

The  expression  “secundum  priora 
statute”  is  probably  the  emendation  of 
a  copyist  puzzled  by  the  obscurity  of 
“secundum  propria  statute,”  which 
latter  is  the  reading  given  by  Dio¬ 
nysius  Exiguus.  That  it  is  the  correct 
one  is  rendered  almost  certain  by  the 
Greek  version,  which  is  nara  rovq  ifiiovg 
upovc  1  (Calixt.  Conjug.  Cleric,  p.  350) 
which  would  seem  to  leave  the  matter 
very  much  to  the  preexisting  customs 
of  the  individual  churches. 

a  De  Adulterin.  Conjug.  Lib.  n.  c.  20. 


GRADUAL  OBEDIENCE  OF  WESTERN  EUROPE.  75 


cerned  in  the  ministry  of  the  altar  should  be  chaste  in  all  things. 
No  attempt,  however,  was  apparently  made  to  strengthen  the  resolu¬ 
tion  by  affixing  a  penalty  for  its  infringement.  It  was  a  simple 
declaration  of  opinion,  and  nothing  more.1 

Symptoms  of  similar  difficulty  in  the  rigid  enforcement  of  the 
canon  are  observable  elsewhere.  The  proceedings  of  the  first  council 
of  Toledo,  held  in  the  year  400,  shows  not  only  that  it  was  a  recent 
innovation  which  continued  to  be  disregarded,  but  that  it  had  given 
rise  to  a  crowd  of  novel  questions  which  required  imperatively  to  be 
settled,  as  to  the  status  of  the  several  grades  of  clerks  who  were 
guilty  of  various  forms  of  disobedience2 — the  prototype  and  examplar 
of  innumerable  similar  attempts  at  legislation  which  continued  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years  to  occupy  a  good  part  of  the  attention 
of  almost  every  council  and  synod.  The  prelates  of  Cis-Alpine 
Gaul,  assembled  in  the  council  of  Turin  in  401,  could  only  be 
brought  to  pronounce  incapable  of  promotion  those  who  contravened 
the  injunction  which  separated  them  from  their  wives.3  The  prac¬ 
tical  working  of  this  was  to  permit  those  to  retain  their  wives  who 
were  satisfied  with  the  grade  to  which  they  had  attained.  Thus  the 
priest,  who  saw  little  prospect  of  elevation  to  the  episcopate,  might 
readily  console  himself  with  the  society  of  his  wife,  while  the  powerful 
influence  of  the  wives  would  he  brought  to  bear  against  the  prompt¬ 
ings  of  ambition  on  the  part  of  their  husbands.  The  punishment 
thus  was  heaviest  on  the  lower  grades  and  lightest  on  the  higher 
clergy,  whose  position  should  have  rendered  the  sin  more  heinous — 
in  fact,  the  bishop,  to  whom  further  promotion  was  impossible, 
escaped  entirely  from  the  penalty. 


1  Faustinus  episcopus  ecclesise  Po- 
tentinse,  prov  incise  Piceni,  legatus  Ro¬ 
mans  ecclesi*,  dixit :  Placet  ut  epis¬ 
copus,  presbyter  et  diaconus  vel  qui 
sacramenta  contrectant  pudiciti*  cus- 
todes  ab  uxoribus  se  abstineant.  Ab 
universis  episcopis  dictum  est :  Placet 
ut  in  omnibus  pudicitia  custodiatur 
qui  altari  inserviunt  (Cod.  Eccles. 
African,  can.  iv.). 

That  strict  rules  were  not  enforced 
in  the  African  church  is  rendered 
probable  by  another  circumstance. 
Faustus  the  Manichaean,  in  defending 
the  tenets  of  his  sect  on  the  subject 
of  marriage  and  celibacy,  enters  into 
an  elaborate  comparison  of  their  doc¬ 
trines  and  practices  with  those  of  the 
Catholic  church.  In  ridiculing  the 


idea  that  the  Manichseans  prohibited 
marriage  to  their  followers,  he  could 
not  have  omitted  the  argument  and 
contrast  derivable  from  prohibition 
of  marriage  by  the  Catholics,  had 
such  prohibition  been  enforced.  His 
omission  to  do  this  is  therefore  a 
negative  proof  of  great  weight. — See 
Augustin,  contra  Faust.  Manich.  Lib. 
xxx.  c.  iv. 

2  Concil.  Toletan.  I.  ann.  400  can. 
1,  3,  4,  6,  7,  18,  19. 

3  Hi  autem  qui  contra  interdictum 
sunt  ordinati,  vel  in  ministerio  filios 
genuerunt,  ne  ad  majores  gradus  or- 
dinum  permittantur  synodi  decrevit 
auctoritas. — Concil.  Taurinens.  c.  8. 


76 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


Even  as  late  as  441  the  first  council  of  Orange  shows  how  utterly 
the  rule  had  been  neglected  by  ordering  that  for  the  future  no  mar¬ 
ried  man  should  be  ordained  deacon  without  making  promise  of  sep¬ 
aration  from  his  wife,  for  contravention  of  which  he  was  to  suffer 
degradation ;  while  those  who  had  previously  been  admitted  to  orders 
were  only  subjected  to  the  canon  of  the  council  of  Turin,  incurring 
merely  loss  of  promotion.1  This  evidently  indicates  that  the  regu¬ 
lation  was  a  novelty,  for  it  admits  the  injustice  of  subjecting  to  the 
rigor  of  the  canon  those  who  had  taken  orders  without  being  aware 
of  the  obligations  incurred ;  and  it  is  a  fair  conclusion  to  suppose 
that  this  was  a  compromise  by  which  the  existing  clergy  gave  their 
assent  to  the  rule  for  the  benefit  of  their  successors,  provided  that 
they  themselves  escaped  its  full  severity.  In  fact,  it  seemed  to  be 
impossible  to  make  the  church  of  Gaul  accept  the  rule  of  discipline. 
About  459,  we  find  Leo  I.,  in  answer  to  some  interrogatories  of 
Rusticus,  Bishop  of  Narbonne,  laboriously  explaining  that  deacons 
and  subdeacons,  as  well  as  bishops  and  priests,  must  treat  their  wives 
as  sisters.2  Rusticus  had  evidently  asked  the  question,  and  Leo 
expresses  no  surprise  at  his  ignorance. 

The  Irish  Church,  founded  about  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century, 
although  it  was  to  a  great  extent  based  on  monachism,  apparently 
did  not  at  first  order  the  separation  of  the  sexes.  A  century  later 
an  effort  seems  to  have  been  made  in  this  direction ;  but  the  canons 
of  a  synod  held  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighth  century  show  that 
priests  at  that  time  were  not  prevented  from  having  wives.3 

Even  where  the  authority  of  the  decretals  of  Siricius  and  Innocent 
was  received  with  respectful  silence,  it  was  not  always  easy  to  enforce 
their  provisions.  An  epistle  of  Innocent  to  the  bishops  of  Calabria 
shows  that,  within  territory  depending  strictly  upon  Rome  itself,  a 
passive  resistance  was  maintained,  requiring  constant  supervision  and 
interference  to  render  the  rule  imperative.  Some  priests,  whose 
growing  families  rendered  their  disregard  of  discipline  as  unquestion¬ 
able  as  it  was  defiant,  remained  unpunished.  Either  the  bishops 
refused  to  execute  the  laws,  or  their  sympathies  were  known  to  be 


1  Concil.  Arausic.  I.  c.  22,  23,  24. 

2  Leon.  Pl\  I.  Epist.  clxvii.  In- 
quis.  iii. 

3  Catalogus  Sanctt.  Hibern.  (Haddan 
&  Stubbs  1 1.  292) — ConfessioS.  Patricii 
(Ibid.  308, 310) — Epist.  S.  Patricii  (Ibid. 


317) — Synod.  S.  Patricii  can.  (3  (Ibid. 
329).  The  date  of  all  these  documents 
is  of  course  somewhat  conjectural,  but 
l  have  assumed  it  safe  to  follow  the 
conclusions  of  the  painstaking  and 
lamented  Mr.  Haddan. 


POPULAR  DESIRE  FOR  CELIBACY. 


77 


with  the  offenders,  for  the  pious  layman  whose  sensibilities  were 
wounded  by  the  scandal  felt  himself  obliged  to  appeal  to  the  Pope. 
Innocent  accordingly  ordered  the  accused  to  he  tried  and  to  be 
expelled,  while  he  expressed  no  little  surprise  at  the  negligence  of 
the  prelates  who  were  so  remiss.1  It  is  more  difficult  to  understand 
the  edict  of  420,  issued  by  Honorius,  to  which  allusion  has  already 
been  made  (p.  55).  This  law  expressly  declares  that  the  desire  for 
purity  does  not  require  the  separation  of  wives  whose  marriage  took 
place  before  the  ordination  of  their  husbands. 

These  disconnected  attempts  at  resistance  were  unsuccessful.  Sa¬ 
cerdotalism  triumphed,  and  the  rule  which  forbade  marriage  to  those 
in  orders,  and  separated  husband  and  wife,  when  the  former  was 
promoted  to  the  ministry  of  the  altar,  became  irrevocably  incorporated 
in  the  canon  law.  Thoroughout  the  struggle  the  Papacy  had  a  most 
efficient  ally  in  the  people.  The  holiness  and  the  necessity  of  abso¬ 
lute  purity  was  so  favorite  a  theme  with  the  leading  minds  of  the 
church,  and  formed  so  prominent  a  portion  of  their  daily  homilies 
and  exhortations,  that  the  popular  mind  could  not  but  be  deeply  im¬ 
pressed  with  its  importance,  and  therefore  naturally  exacted  of  the 
pastor  the  sacrifice  which  cost  so  little  to  the  flock.  An  instance  or 
two  occurring  about  this  period  will  show  how  vigilant  was  the  watch 
kept  upon  the  virtue  of  ecclesiastics,  and  how  summary  was  the  pro¬ 
cess  by  which  indignation  was  visited  upon  even  the  most  exalted, 
when  suspected  of  a  lapse  from  the  rigid  virtue  required  of  them. 
Thirty  years  after  the  ordination  of  St.  Brice,  who  succeeded  St. 
Martin  in  the  diocese  of  Tours,  rumor  credited  him  with  the  paternity 
of  a  child  unseasonably  born  of  a  nun.  In  their  wrath  the  citizens 
by  common  consent  determined  to  stone  him.  The  saint  calmly 
ordered  the  infant,  then  in  its  thirtieth  day,  to  be  brought  to  him, 
and  adjured  it  in  the  name  of  Christ  to  declare  if  it  were  his,  to  which 
the  little  one  firmly  replied  “Thou  art  not  my  father!”  The  people, 
attributing  the  miracle  to  magic,  persisted  in  their  resolution,  when 
St.  Brice  wrapped  a  quantity  of  burning  coals  in  his  robe,  and 
pressing  the  mass  to  his  bosom  carried  it  to  the  tomb  of  St.  Martin, 
where  he  deposited  his  burden,  and  displayed  his  robe  uninjured. 
Even  this  was  insufficient  to  satisfy  the  outraged  feelings  of  the  pop¬ 
ulace,  and  St.  Brice  deemed  himself  fortunate  in  making  his  escape 
uninjured,  when  a  successor  was  elected  to  the  bishopric.2  Somewhat 


1  Innocent.  PP.  I.  Epist.  v. 


2  Greg.  Turon.  Hist.  Franc.  Lib.  n.  c.  1. 


78 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


similar  was  the  case  of  St.  Simplicius,  Bishop  of  Autun.  Even  as 
a  layman,  his  holy  zeal  had  led  him  to  treat  as  a  sister  his  beautiful 
wife,  who  was  inspired  with  equal  piety.  On  his  elevation  to  the 
episcopate,  still  confident  of  their  mutual  self-control,  she  refused  to 
be  separated  from  him.  The  people,  scandalized  at  the  impropriety, 
and  entertaining  a  settled  incredulity  as  to  the  superhuman  virtue 
requisite  to  such  restraint,  mobbed  the  bishop's  dwelling,  and  ex¬ 
pressed  their  sentiments  in  a  manner  more  energetic  than  respectful. 
The  saintly  virgin  called  for  a  portable  furnace  full  of  fire,  emptied 
its  contents  into  her  robe,  and  held  it  uninjured  for  an  hour,  when 
she  transferred  the  ordeal  to  her  husband,  saying  that  the  trial  was 
as  nothing  to  the  flames  through  which  they  had  already  passed  un¬ 
scathed.  The  result  with  him  was  the  same,  and  the  people  retired, 
ashamed  of  their  unworthy  suspicions.1  Gregory  of  Tours,  who 
relates  these  legends,  was  sufficiently  near  in  point  of  time  for  them 
to  have  an  historical  value,  even  when  divested  of  their  miraculous 
ornaments.  They  bring  before  us  the  popular  tendencies  and  modes 
of  thought,  and  show  us  how  powerful  an  instrument  the  passions  of 
the  people  became,  when  skilfully  aroused  and  directed  by  those  in 
authority. 

The  Western  church  was  thus  at  length  irrevocably  committed  to 
the  strict  maintenance  of  ecclesiastical  celibacy,  and  the  labors  of  the 
three  great  Latin  Fathers,  Jerome,  Ambrose,  and  Augustin,  were 
crowned  with  success.  It  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  cast  a  glance  at 
such  evidences  as  remain  to  us  of  the  state  of  morals  about  this 
period  and  during  the  fifth  century,  and  to  judge  whether  the  new  rule 
of  discipline  had  resulted  in  purifying  the  church  of  the  corruptions 
which  had  so  excited  the  indignation  of  the  anchorite  of  Bethlehem, 
and  had  nerved  him  in  his  fierce  contests  with  those  who  opposed  the 
enforced  asceticism  of  the  ministers  of  Christ. 

IIow  the  morals  of  the  church  fared  during  the  struggle  is  well 
exhibited  in  the  writings  of  St.  Jerome  himself,  as  quoted  above, 
describing  the  unlawful  unions  of  the  agapetae  wTith  ecclesiastics  and 
the  horrors  induced  by  the  desire  to  escape  the  consequences  of  in¬ 
cautious  frailty.  Conclusions  not  less  convincing  may  be  drawn  from 
his  assertion  that  holy  orders  were  sometimes  assumed  on  account  of 
the  superior  opportunities  which  clericature  gave  of  improper  inter- 


1  Greg.  Turon.  de  Glor.  Confess,  c.  76. 


EFFECT  ON  ECCLESIASTICAL  MORALITY. 


79 


course  with  women;1  and  from  his  description  of  the  ecclesiastics, 
who  passed  their  lives  in  female  companionship,  surrounded  by  young 
female  slaves,  and  leading  an  existence  which  differed  from  matrimony 
only  in  the  absence  of  the  marriage  ceremony.2 

But  a  short  time  after  the  recognition  of  the  rule  appeared  the 
law  of  Honorius,  promulgated  in  420,  to  which  reference  has  already 
been  made.  It  is  possible  that  the  permission  of  residence  there 
granted  to  the  wives  of  priests  may  have  been  intended  to  act  as  a 
partial  cure  to  evils  caused  by  the  enforcement  of  celibacy ;  and  this 
is  rendered  the  more  probable,  since  other  portions  of  the  edict  show 
that  intercourse  with  improper  females  had  increased  to  such  a  degree 
that  the  censures  of  the  church  could  no  longer  restrain  it,  and  that 
an  appeal  to  secular  interference  was  necessary,  by  which  such  prac¬ 
tices  should  be  made  a  crime  to  be  punished  by  the  civil  tribunals.3 
That  even  this  failed  lamentably  in  purifying  the  church  may  he 
gathered  from  the  proceedings  of  the  provincial  councils  of  the 
period. 

Thus,  in  453,  the  council  of  Anjou  repeats  the  prohibition  of 
improper  female  intimacy,  giving  as  a  reason  the  ruin  constantly 
wrought  by  it.  For  those  who  thereafter  persisted  in  their  guilt, 
however,  the  only  penalty  threatened  was  incapacity  for  promotion 
on  the  part  of  the  lower  grades,  and  suspension  of  functions  for  the 
higher4 — whence  we  may  conclude  that  practically  an  option  was 
afforded  to  those  who  preferred  sin  to  ambition.  The  second  council 
of  Arles,  in  443,  likewise  gives  an  insight  into  the  subterfuges 
adopted  to  evade  the  rule  and  to  escape  detection.5  About  this 
period  a  newly-appointed  bishop,  Talasius  of  Angers,  applied  to 
Lupus  of  Troyes  and  Euphronius  of  Autun  for  advice  concerning 
various  knotty  points,  among  which  were  the  rules  respecting  the 
celibacy  of  the  different  grades.  In  their  reply  the  prelates  advised 
their  brother  that  it  would  be  well  if  the  increase  of  priests’  families 
could  be  prevented,  but  that  such  a  consummation  was  almost  im¬ 
possible  if  married  men  were  admitted  to  orders,  and  that  if  he 
wanted  to  escape  ceaseless  wrangling  and  the  scandal  of  seeing  chil- 


1  Sunt  alii  (de  mei  ordinis  hominibus 
loquor)  qui  iueo  presbyteratum  et  dia- 
conatum  ambiunt  ut  mulieres  licentius 
videant. — Epist.  xxn.  ad  Eustoch.  cap. 
28. 

2  Epist.  cxxv.  ad  Rusticum,  cap.  6. 


3  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  ii.  1.  44. 

4  Concil.  Andegav.  ann.  453  c.  4. 

5  Nullus  diaconus  vel  presbyter  vel 
episcopus  ad  cellarii  seeretum  intro- 
mittat  puellam  vel  ingenuam  vel  an- 
cillam. — Concil.  Arelatens.  II.  c.  4. 


80 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


dren  born  to  his  priests,  he  had  better  ordain  those  only  who  'were 
single.1  The  subject  was  one  of  endless  effort.  In  fact,  of  the 
numerous  councils  whose  canons  have  reached  us,  held  in  Gaul  and 
Spain  during  the  centuries  which  intervened  until  the  invasion  of 
the  Saracens  and  the  decrepitude  of  the  Merovingian  dynasty  caused 
their  discontinuance,  there  is  scarcely  one  which  did  not  feel  the 
necessity  of  legislating  on  this  delicate  matter.  It  would  be  tedious 
and  unprofitable  to  detail  specifically  the  innumerable  exhortations, 
threats,  and  ingenious  devices  resorted  to  in  the  desperate  hope  of 
enforcing  obedience  to  the  rules  and  of  purifying  the  morals  of  the 
clergy.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  constantly  varying  punishments 
enacted,  the  minute  supervision  ordered  over  every  action  of  the 
priesthood,  the  constant  attendance  of  witnesses  whose  inseparable 
companionship  should  testify  to  the  virtue  of  each  ecclesiastic,  and 
the  perpetual  iteration  of  the  rule  in  every  conceivable  shape,  prove 
at  once  the  hopelessness  of  the  attempt,  and  the  incurable  nature  of 
the  disorders  of  which  the  church  was  at  once  the  cause  and  the 
victim.  In  short,  this  perpetual  legislation  frequently  betrays  the 
fact  that  it  was  not  only  practically  impossible  to  maintain  separation 
between  the  clergy  and  their  wives,  but  that  at  times  marriage  was 
not  uncommon  even  within  the  prohibited  orders.2 

Perhaps  this  may  not  move  our  surprise  when  we  glance  at  the 
condition  of  morality  existing  throughout  the  Empire  in  the  second 
quarter  of  the  fifth  century,  as  sketched  by  a  zealous  churchman  of 


1  Epist.  Lupi  et  Euphronii.  (Har- 
duin.  II.  792.) 

2  Whatever  interest  there  might  be 
in  exhibiting  in  detail  the  varying 
legislation  and  the  expedients  of  lenity 
or  severity  by  turns  adopted,  would 
scarcely  repay  the  space  which  it 
would  occupy  or  relieve  the  monotony 
of  retracing  the  circle  in  which  the 
unfortunate  fathers  of  the  church 
perpetually  moved.  I  therefore  con¬ 
tent  myself  with  simply  indicating 
such  canons  of  the  period  as  bear 
upon  the  subject,  for  the  benefit  of 
any  student  who  may  desire  to  exa¬ 
mine  the  matter  more  minutely. 

Concil.  Turon.  I.  (ann.  400)  c.  2, 
3. — Agathens.  (506)  c.  9. — Aureli- 
anens.  I.  (511)  c.  13. — Tarraconens. 
(516)  c.  1. — Gerundens.  (517)  c.  6, 
7.  —  Epaonens.  (517)  c.  2,  32.  —  Iler- 


dens.  (523)  c.  2,  5,  15. — Toletan.  II. 
(531)  c.  1,  3. — Aurelianens.  II.  (533) 
c.  8. — Arvernens.  I.  (535)  c.  13,  16. — 
Aurelianens.  III.  (538)  c.  2,  4,  7. — 
Aurelianens.  IY.  (541)  c.  17. — Aure¬ 
lianens.  Y.  (549)  c.  3,  4. — Bracarens. 

1.  (563)  c.  15. — Turonens.  II.  (567) 
c.  10,  12,  13,  15,  19,  20. — Bracarens. 
II.  (572)  c.  8,  32,  39. — Autissiodor. 
(578)  c.  21. — Matiscon.  I.  (581)  c.  1, 

2,  3,  11. — Lugdunens.  III.  (583)  c.  1. 
— Toletan.  III.  (589)  c.  5. — Hispalens. 
I.  (590)  c.  3. — Ca;saraugustan.  (592) 
c.  1. — Toletan.  (597)  c.  1. — Oscensis 
(598)  c.  2. — Egarens.  (614)  c.  unic. 
— Concil.  loc.  incert.  (a.  615)  c.  8,  12. 
—Toletan.  IV.  (633)  c.  42,  44,  52,  55. 
— Cabilonens  (649)  c.  3. — Toletan. 
VIII.  (653)  c.  4,  5,  6,  7.— Toletan.  IX. 
(655)  c.  10. — Toletan.  XI.  (675)  c.  5. 
— Bracarens.  III.  (675)  c.  4. — Augus- 
todunens.  (690)  c.  10. 


4 


CONDITION  OF  SOCIETY.  81 

the  period.  Salvianus,  Bishop  of  Marseilles,  was  a  native  of  Treves. 
Three  times  he  witnessed  the  sack  of  that  unfortunate  city  by  the 
successive  barbarian  hordes  which  swept  over  Western  Europe,  and 
he  lifts  up  his  voice,  like  Jeremiah,  to  bewail  the  sins  of  his  people, 
and  the  unutterable  misfortunes  which  were  the  punishment  but  not 
the  cure  of  those  sins.  Nothing  can  be  conceived  more  utterly 
licentious  and  depraved  than  the  wdiole  framework  of  society  as 
described  by  him,  with  such  details  as  preclude  us  from  believing 
that  holy  indignation  or  pious  sensibility  led  him  to  exaggerate  the 
outlines  or  to  darken  the  shades  of  the  picture.  The  criminal  and 
frivolous  pleasures  of  a  decrepit  civilization  left  no  thought  for  the 
*  absorbing  duties  of  the  day  or  the  fearful  trials  of  the  morrow. 
Unbridled  lust  and  unblushing  indecency  admitted  no  sanctity  in 
the  marriage-tie.  The  rich  and  powerful  established  harems,  in  the 
recesses  of  wdiich  their  wives  lingered,  forgotten,  neglected,  and 
despised.  The  banquet,  the  theatre,  and  the  circus  exhausted  what 
little  strength  and  energy  were  left  by  domestic  excesses.  The  poor 
aped  the  vices  of  the  rich,  and  hideous  depravity  reigned  supreme 
and  invited  the  vengeance  of  Heaven.  Such  rare  souls  as  could 
remain  pure  amid  the  prevailing  contamination  would  naturally  take 
refuge  in  the  contrast  of  severe  asceticism,  and  resolutely  seek  abso¬ 
lute  seclusion  from  a  w’orld  whose  every  touch  was  pollution.  The 
secular  clergy,  however,  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  a  society  so  utterly 
corrupt,  and  enjoying  the  wealth  and  station  which  rendered  their 
position  an  object  for  the  ambition  of  the  worldly,  could  not  avoid 
sharing  to  a  great  extent  the  guilt  of  their  flocks,  whose  sins  were 
more  easily  imitated  than  eradicated.  Nor  does  Salvianus  confine 
his  denunciations  to  Gaul  and  Spain.  Africa  and  Italy  are  represented 
as  even  worse,  the  prevalence  of  unnatural  crimes  lending  a  deeper  dis¬ 
gust  to  the  rivalry  in  iniquity.  Borne  was  the  sewer  of  the  nations, 
the  centre  of  abomination  of  the  world,  where  vice  openly  assumed  its 
most  repulsive  form,  and  wflckedness  reigned  unchecked  and  supreme. 

It  is  true  that  the  descriptions  of  Salvianus  are  intended  to  include 
the  whole  body  of  the  people,  and  that  his  special  references  to  the 
church  are  but  few.  Those  occasional  references,  however,  are  not 
of  a  nature  to  exempt  it  from  sharing  in  the  full  force  of  his  indig¬ 
nation.  When  he  pronounces  the  Africans  to  be  utterly  licentious, 
he  excepts  those  who  have  been  regenerated  in  religion — but  these 
he  declares  to  be  so  few  in  number  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe  them 

6 


82 


ENFORCEMENT  OF  CELIBACY. 


Africans.  What  hope,  he  asks,  can  there  be  for  the  people  when 
even  in  the  church  itself  the  most  diligent  search  can  scarce  discover 
one  chaste  amid  so  many  thousands :  and  when  imperial  Carthage 
was  tottering  to  its  fall  under  the  assaults  of  the  besieging  Vandals, 
he  describes  its  clergy  as  wantoning  in  the  circus  and  the  theatre — 
those  without  falling  under  the  sword  of  the  barbarian,  those  within 
abandoning  themselves  to  sensuality.1  This,  be  it  remembered,  is 
that  African  church  which  had  just  been  so  carefully  nurtured  in  the 
purest  asceticism  for  thirty  years,  under  the  unremitting  care  of 
Augustin,  who  died  while  his  episcopal  city  of  Hippo  was  encircled 
with  the  leaguer  of  the  Vandals. 

Nor  were  these  disorders  attributable  to  the  irruption  of  the  Bar¬ 
barians,  for  Salvianus  sorrowfully  contrasts  their  purity  of  morals 
with  the  reckless  dissoluteness  of  the  Romans.  The  respect  for 
female  virtue,  inherent  in  the  Teutonic  tribes,  has  no  warmer 
admirer  than  he,  and  he  recounts  with  wonder  how  the  temptations 
of  luxury  and  vice,  spread  before  them  in  the  wealthy  cities  which 
they  sacked,  excited  only  their  disgust,  and  how,  so  far  from  yielding 
to  the  allurements  that  surrounded  them,  they  sternly  set  to  work  to 
reform  the  depravity  of  their  new  subjects,  and  enacted  laws  to  repress 
at  least  the  open  manifestations  which  shocked  their  untutored  virtue. 

When  corruption  so  ineradicable  pervaded  every  class,  we  can 
scarce  wonder  that  in  the  story  of  the  trial  of  Sixtus  III.,  in  440, 
for  the  seduction  of  a  nun,  when  his  accusers  were  unable  to  sub¬ 
stantiate  the  charge,  he  is  said  to  have  addressed  the  synod  assembled 
in  judgment  by  repeating  to  them  the  story  of  the  woman  taken  in 
adultery,  and  the  decision  of  Christ.  Whether  it  were  intended  to 
be  regarded  as  a  confession,  or  as  a  sarcasm  on  the  prelates  around 
him,  whom  he  thus  challenged  to  cast  the  first  stone,  the  tale  whether 
true  or  false  is  symptomatic  of  the  time.2 

As  regards  the  East,  if  the  accusations  brought  against  Ibas, 
Metropolitan  of  Edessa,  at  the  Synod  of  Berytus  in  448, 3  are  worthy 
of  credit,  the  Oriental  church  was  not  behind  the  West  in  the 
effronterv  of  sin. 


1  Salvian.  De  Gubernat.  Dei  Lib.  vi. 

VII. 

2  Expurgat.  Sixti  Fapae  c.  vi.  (Har- 
duin.  Concil.  II.  1742). — Pagi  (arm. 
433,  No.  19)  casts  doubt  on  the  authen¬ 
ticity  of  the  proceedings  of  this  trial, 

and  modern  criticism  (see  “Janus” 


The  Pope  and  the  Council,  p.  124) 

|  assumes  it  to  be  a  fabrication  of  the 
early  part  of  the  sixth  century,  made 
for  the  purpose  of  vindicating  the  im- 
;  munity  of  the  clergy  from  secular  law. 

3  Concil.  Chalcedon.  Act.  X.  (Har- 
duin.  II.  518-9). 


VI. 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 


During  the  period  which  we  have  been  considering,  there  had 
gradually  arisen  a  divergence  between  the  Christians  of  the  East 
and  of  the  West.  The  Arianism  of  Constantius  opposed  to  the 
orthodoxy  of  Constans  lent  increased  development  to  the  separation 
which  the  division  of  the  Empire  had  commenced.  The  rapid 
growth  of  the  New  Rome  founded  on  the  shores  of  the  Bosporus 
gave  to  the  East  a  political  metropolis  which  rendered  it  independent 
of  the  power  of  Rome,  and  the  patriarchate  there  erected  absorbed 
to  itself  the  supremacy  of  the  old  Apostolic  Sees,  which  had  previ¬ 
ously  divided  the  ecclesiastical  strength  of  the  East.  In  the  West, 
the  Bishop  of  Rome  was  unquestionably  the  highest  dignitary,  and 
when  the  separation  relieved  him  of  the  rivalry  of  prelates  equal  in 
rank,  he  was  enabled  to  acquire  an  authority  over  the  churches  of 
the  Occident  undreamed  of  in  previous  ages.  As  yet,  however,  there 
was  little  pretension  of  extending  that  power  over  the  East,  and 
though  the  ceaseless  quarrels  which  raged  in  Antioch,  Constanti¬ 
nople,  and  Alexandria  enabled  him  frequently  to  intervene  as  arbiter, 
still  he  had  not  yet  assumed  the  tone  of  a  judge  without  appeal  or 
of  an  autocratic  lawgiver. 

Though  five  hundred  years  were  still  to  pass  before  the  Greek 
schism  formally  separated  Constantinople  from  the  communion  of 
Rome,  yet  already,  by  the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  the  char¬ 
acteristics  which  ultimately  led  to  that  schism  were  beginning  to 
develop  themselves  with  some  distinctness.  The  sacerdotal  spirit  of 
the  West  showed  itself  in  the  formalism  which  loaded  religion  with 
rules  of  observance  and  discipline  enforced  with  Roman  severity. 
The  inquiring  and  metaphysical  tendencies  of  the  East  discovered 
unnumbered  doubtful  points  of  belief,  which  were  argued  with  ex¬ 
haustive  subtlety  and  supported  by  relentless  persecution.  However 


84 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 


important  it  might  be  for  any  polemic  to  obtain  for  his  favorite 
dogma  the  assent  of  the  Roman  bishop,  whose  decisions  on  such 
points  thus  constantly  acquired  increased  authority,  yet  when  the 
Pope  undertook  to  issue  laws  and  promulgate  rules  of  discipline, 
whatever  force  they  had  was  restricted  to  the  limits  of  the  Latin 
tongue.  Accordingly,  we  find  that  the  decretals  of  Siricius  and 
Innocent  I.  produced  no  effect  throughout  the  East.  Asceticism 
continued  to  flourish  there  as  in  its  birthplace,  but  it  was  voluntary, 
and  there  is  no  trace  of  any  official  attempt  to  render  it  universally 
imperative.  The  canon  of  Nicsea  of  course  was  law,  and  the  purity 
of  the  church  required  its  strict  observance,  to  avoid  scandals  and 
immorality  ;l  but  beyond  this  and  the  ancient  rules  excluding  digami 
and  prohibiting  marriage  in  orders  no  general  laws  were  insisted  on, 
and  each  province  or  patriarchate  was  allowed  to  govern  itself  in 
this  respect.  How  little  the  Eastern  prelates  thought  of  introducing 
compulsory  celibacy  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  at  the  second  general 
council,  held  at  Constantinople  in  381,  only  four  or  five  years  before 
the  decretals  of  Siricius,  there  is  no  trace  of  any  legislation  on  the 
subject;  and  this  acquires  increased  significance  when  we  observe 
that  although  this  council  has  always  been  reckoned  (Ecumenic,  and 
has  enjoyed  full  authority  throughout  the  church  universal,  yet  out 
of  one  hundred  and  fifty  bishops  who  signed  the  acts,  but  one — 
a  Spanish  prelate — was  from  the  West. 

This  avoidance  of  action  was  not  merely  an  omission  of  surplusage. 
Had  the  disposition  existed  to  erect  the  custom  of  celibacy  into  a 
law,  there  was  ample  cause  for  legislation  on  the  subject.  Epipha- 
nius,  who  died  in  the  year  403  at  a  very  advanced  age,  probably 
compiled  his  “ Panarium”  not  long  after  this  period;  he  belonged  to 
the  extreme  school  of  ascetics,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  asserting 
the  most  rigid  rule  with  regard  to  virginity  and  continence,  which  he 
considered  to  be  the  base  and  corner-stone  of  the  church.  While 


1  The  strictness  with  which  the 
Nicene  canon  was  enforced  is  shown 
by  an  epistle  of  St.  Basil,  about  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century,  in  which 
he  sternly  reproves  a  priest  named 
Paregorius,  who  at  the  age  of  70  had 
thought  himself  sufficiently  protected 
against  scandal  to  allow  to  his  infirmi- 
ties  the  comfort  of  a  housekeeper.  The 
unlucky  female  is  ordered  to  be  forth¬ 
with  immured  in  a  convent,  and,  until 
this  is  accomplished,  Paregorius  is 


forbidden  to  perform  his  priestly  func¬ 
tions.  The  whole  is  based  on  the  au¬ 
thority  of  the  council  of  Nicaea. — “  Nec 
primo  nec  soli  (tibi  Paregori)  sancivi- 
mus,  non  debere  mulierculas  coliabi- 
tare  viris.  Lege  canonem,  a  sanctis 
patribus  nostris  in  Nicaena  synodo 
constitutum :  qui  manifeste  interdixit, 
ne  quis  mulierculam  subintroductam 
habeat.  Coelibatus  autem  honestatem 
suam  in  eo  habet,  si  quis  a  nexu  mu- 
lieris  secesserit.” 


CELIBACY  NOT  COMPULSORY. 


85 


assuming  celibacy  to  be  the  rule  for  all  concerned  in  the  functions  of 
the  priesthood,  he  admits  that  in  many  places  it  was  not  observed,  on 
account  of  the  degradation  of  morals  or  of  the  impossibility  of  obtain¬ 
ing  enough  ministers  irreprehensible  in  character  to  satisfy  the  needs 
of  the  faithful.1 

That  Epiphanius  endeavored  to  erect  into  a  universal  canon  rules 
only  adopted  in  certain  churches  is  rendered  probable  by  an  allusion 
of  St.  Jerome,  who,  in  his  controversy  with  Yigilantius,  urged  in 
support  of  celibacy  the  custom  of  the  churches  of  the  East  (or 
Antioch),  of  Alexandria,  and  of  Rome.2  He  thus  omits  the  great 
exarchates  of  Ephesus,  Pontus,  and  Thrace,  as  not  lending  strength 
to  his  argument.  Of  these  the  first  is  perhaps  explicable  by  the 
latitudinarianism  of  its  metropolitan,  Anthony,  Bishop  of  Ephesus. 
At  the  council  of  Constantinople,  held  in  400,  this  prelate  was 
accused  of  many  crimes,  among  which  were  simony,  the  conversion 
to  the  use  of  his  family  of  ecclesiastical  property  and  even  of  the 
sacred  vessels,  and  further,  that  after  having  vowed  separation  from 
his  wife,  he  had  had  children  by  her.3  Even  Egypt,  the  nursery  of 
monachism,  affords  a  somewhat  suspicious  example  in  the  person  of 
Synesius,  Bishop  of  Ptolemais.  This  philosophic  disciple  of  Hypatia, 
when  pressed  to  accept  the  bishopric,  declined  it  on  various  grounds, 
among  which  was  his  unwillingness  to  be  separated  from  his  wife,  or 
to  live  with  her  secretly  like  an  adulterer,  the  separation  being  par¬ 
ticularly  objectionable  to  him,  as  interfering  with  his  desire  for  numer¬ 
ous  offspring.4  Synesius,  however,  was  apparently  able  to  reconcile  the 
incompatibilities,  for  after  accepting  the  episcopal  office,  we  find,  when 
the  Libyans  invaded  the  Pentapolis  and  he  stood  boldly  forth  to  pro¬ 
tect  his  flock,  that  two  days  before  an  expected  encounter,  he  confided 
to  his  brother’s  care  his  children,  to  whom  he  asked  the  transfer  of 
that  tender  fraternal  affection  which  he  himself  had  always  enjoyed.5 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  what  efforts  were  doubtless  made  to  extend 
the  rule  and  to  render  it  as  imperative  throughout  the  East  as  it  was 
becoming  in  the  West,  when  we  read  the  extravagant  laudations  of 
virginity  uttered  about  this  time  by  St.  John  Chrysostom,  who  lent 


1  Haeres.  lix.  c.  4. 

2  Quid  faciunt  Orientis  ecclesiae? 

Quid  iEgypti  et  sedis  Apostolic®,  quae 

aut  virgines  clericos  accipiunt,  aut  con- 
tinentes  :  aut  si  uxoreshabuerint,  mariti 

esse  desistunt. — Lib.  adv.  Vigilant,  c.  2. 


3  Sextum,  quod  dimissa  uxore  sua 
cum  ea  rursus  congressus  est,  filiosque 
ex  ea  procreasset. — Palladii  Dial,  de 
Vit.  S.  Joan.  Clirysost.  cap.  xiii. 

4  Synesii  Epist.  cv. 

5  Ejusd.  Epist.  cviii. 


86 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 


the  sanction  of  his  great  name  and  authority  to  the  assertion  that  it 
it  as  superior  to  marriage  as  heaven  is  to  earth,  or  as  angels  are  to 
men.1  Strenuous  as  these  efforts  may  have  been,  however,  they  have 
left  no  permanent  record,  and  their  effect  was  short-lived.  Within 
thirty  years  of  the  time  when  Jerome  quoted  the  example  of  the 
eastern  churches  as  an  argument  against  Vigilantius,  Socrates  chroni¬ 
cles  as  a  novelty  the  introduction  into  Thessalia  of  compulsory 
separation  between  married  priests  and  their  wdves,  which  he  says 
was  commanded  by  Heliodorus,  Bishop  of  Trica,  apparently  to  com¬ 
pensate  for  the  amatory  character  of  the  “Afthiopica,’’  written  in  his 
youth.  The  same  rule,,  Socrates  informs  us,  was  observed  in  Greece, 
Macedonia,  and  Thessalonica,  but  throughout  the  rest  of  the  East  he 
asserts  that  such  separation  was  purely  voluntary,  and  even  that 
many  bishops  had  no  scruple  in  maintaining  ordinary  intercourse 
with  their  wives2 — a  statement  easy  to  be  believed  in  view  of  the 
complaints  of  St.  Isidor  of  Pelusium,  about  the  same  time,  that  the 
rules  of  the  church  enjoining  chastity  received  little  respect  among 
the  priesthood.3 

The  influence  of  Jerome,  Chrysostom,  and  other  eminent  church¬ 
men,  the  example  of  the  West,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Origenians  in 
favor  of  philosophic  asceticism,  doubtless  had  a  powerful  effect  during 
the  first  years  of  the  fifth  century  in  extending  the  custom,  but  they 
failed  in  the  endeavor  to  render  it  universal  and  obligatory,  and  the 
testimony  of  Socrates  shows  how  soon  even  those  provinces  which 
adopted  it  in  Jerome’s  time  returned  to  the  previous  practice  of  leav¬ 
ing  the  matter  to  the  election  of  the  individual.  The  East  thus  pre¬ 
served  the  traditions  of  earlier  times,  as  recorded  in  the  Apostolic 
Constitutions  and  Canons,  prohibiting  marriage  in  orders  and  the 
ordination  of  digami,  but  imposing  no  compulsory  separation  on  those 
who  had  been  married  previous  to  ordination. 

Even  these  rules  required  to  be  occasionally  enunciated  in  order  to 
maintain  their  observance.  In  530  a  constitution  of  Justinian  calls 
attention  to  the  regulation  prohibiting  the  marriage  of  deacons  and 
subdeacons,  and  in  view  of  the  little  respect  paid  to  it,  the  Emperor 
proceeds  to  declare  the  children  of  such  unions  spurious  (not  even 
nothi  or  naturales )  and  incompetent  to  inherit  anything;  the  wife  is 


1  Et  si  placet,  quanto  etiam  melior 
sit  addam,  quanto  ccelum  terra,  quanto 
hominibusangeli. — Lib.  de  Virgin,  c.  x. 


2  Socrat.  H.  E.  Lib.  v.  c.  21. 

3  S.  Isidor.  Pelusiot.  Epist.  Lib.  in. 
No.  75. 


LEGISLATION  OF  JUSTINIAN. 


87 


likewise  incapacitated  from  inheritance,  and  the  whole  estate  of  the 
father  is  escheated  to  the  church — the  severity  of  which  may  perhaps 
be  a  fair  measure  of  the  extent  of  the  evil  which  it  was  intended  to 
repress.1  Five  years  later  Justinian  recurs  to  the  subject,  and  lays 
down  the  received  regulations  in  all  their  details.  Any  one  who 
keeps  a  concubine,  or  who  has  married  a  divorced  woman  or  a  second 
wife,  is  to  be  held  ineligible  to  the  diaconate  or  priesthood.  Any 
member  of  those  orders  or  of  the  subdiaconate  who  takes  a  wife  or  a 
concubine,  whether  publicly  or  secretly,  is  thereupon  to  be  degraded 
and  to  lose  all  clerical  privileges ;  and  though  the  strongest  preference 
is  expressed  for  those  who  though  married  preserve  strict  continence, 
the  very  phrase  employed  indicates  that  this  wTas  altogether  a  matter 
of  choice,  and  that  previous  conjugal  relations  were  not  subject  to 
any  legislative  interference.2  These  same  regulations  wTere  repeated 
some  ten  years  later  in  a  law,  promulgated  about  545, 3  which  was 
preserved  throughout  the  whole  period  of  Greek  jurisprudence,  being 
inserted  by  Leo  the  Philosopher  in  his  Basilica,4  quoted  by  Photius 
in  the  Nomocanon,  and  referred  to  as  still  in  force  by  Balsamon  in 
the  thirteenth  century.5  At  the  same  time  Justinian  tacitly  admits 
the  failure  of  previous  efforts  when  he  adds  a  provision  by  which  an 
unmarried  postulant  for  the  diaconate  is  obliged  to  pledge  himself 
not  to  marry,  and  any  bishop  permitting  such  marriage  is  threatened 
with  degradation.6 

Bishops,  however,  were  subjected  to  the  full  severity  of  the  Latin 
discipline.  As  early  as  528,  Justinian  ordered  that  no  one  should  be 
eligible  to  the  episcopate  who  was  burdened  with  either  children  or 
grandchildren,  giving  as  a  reason  the  engrossing  duties  of  the  office, 
which  required  that  the  whole  mind  and  soul  should  be  devoted  to 
them,  and  still  more  significantly  hinting  the  indecency  of  converting 
to  the  use  of  the  prelate’s  family  the  wealth  bestowed  by  the  faithful 


1  Constit.  45  Cod.  i.  3.  This  law  is 
preserved  by  Photius  (Nomoc.  Tit.  ix. 
c.  29),  but  Balsamon  (Schol.  ad.  loc.) 
says  that  it  is  omitted  in  the  Basilica. 

2  “  Nihil  enim  sic  in  sacris  ordina- 
tionibus  diligimus  quam  cum  castitate 
viventes,  aut  cum  uxoribus  non  cohab- 
itantes,  aut  unius  uxoris  virum,  qui  vel 
fuerit  vel  sit,  et  ipsam  castitatem  eli- 
gentem.”  The  lector  could,  by  forfeit¬ 
ing  his  prospects  of  promotion,  marry 
a  second  time,  if  pressed  by  overmaster¬ 


ing  necessity,  but  he  was  not  allowed, 
under  any  excuse,  to  take  a  third  wife. 
— Novell,  vi.  c.  5. — These  provisions 
were  repeated  the  following  year  in 
Novell,  xxii.  c.  42. 

3  Novell,  cxxiii.  c.  12. 

4  Basilicon  in.  i.  26. 

5  Balsamon.  Schol.  ad  Nomocanon. 
Tit.  i.  c.  23. 

c  Novell,  cxxiii.  c.  14. 


88 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 


on  the  church  for  pious  uses  and  for  charity.1  It  is  probable  that 
this  was  not  strictly  observed,  for  in  585,  when  repeating  the  injunc¬ 
tion,  and  adding  a  restriction  on  conjugal  intercourse,  he  intimates 
that  no  inquiry  shall  be  made  into  infractions  previously  occurring, 
but  that  it  shall  be  rigidly  enforced  for  the  future.2  The  decision 
was  final  as  regards  the  absence  of  a  wife,  for  it  was  again  alluded  to 
in  548,  and  that  law  is  carried  through  the  Nomocanon  and  Basilica.3 
The  absence  of  children  as  a  prerequisite  to  the  episcopate,  however, 
was  not  insisted  upon  so  pertinaciously,  for  Leo  the  Philosopher, 
after  the  compilation  of  the  Basilica,  issued  a  constitution  allowing 
the  ordination  of  bishops  who  had  legitimate  offspring,  arguing  that 
brothers  and  other  relatives  were  equally  prone  to  withdraw  them 
from  the  duties  of  their  position.4 

It  is  not  worth  while  to  enter  into  the  interminable  controversy 
respecting  the  council  held  at  Constantinople  in  680,  the  canons  of 
which  were  promulgated  in  692,  and  which  is  known  to  polemics  as 
the  Quinisext  in  Tridlo.  The  Greeks  maintain  that  it  was  (Ecu¬ 
menic,  and  its  legislation  binding  upon  Christendom;  the  Latins, 
that  it  was  provincial  and  schismatic;  but  whether  Pope  Agatho  ac¬ 
ceded  to  its  canons  or  not;  whether  a  century  later  Adrian  I.  admitted 
them,  or  whether  their  authentication  by  the  second  council  of 
Nicma  gave  them  authority  over  the  whole  church  or  not,  are  ques¬ 
tions  of  little  practical  importance  for  our  purpose,  for  they  never 
were  really  incorporated  into  the  law  of  the  West,  and  they  are  only 
to  be  regarded  as  forming  a  portion  of  the  received  ecclesiastical 
jurisprudence  of  the  East.  In  one  sense,  however,  their  bearing 
upon  the  Latin  church  is  interesting,  for,  in  spite  of  them,  Rome 
maintained  communion  with  Constantinople  for  more  than  a  century 
and  a  half,  and  the  schism  which  then  took  place  arose  from  altogether 
different  causes.  In  the  West,  therefore,  celibacy  was  only  a  point 
of  discipline,  of  no  doctrinal  importance,  and  not  a  matter  of  heresy, 
as  we  shall  see  it  afterwards  become  under  the  stimulus  afforded  by 
Protestant  controversy. 

The  canons  of  the  Quinisext  are  very  full  upon  all  the  questions 
relating  to  celibacy,  and  show  that  great  relaxation  had  occurred  in 

1  Const.  42  $  1.  Cod.  i.  3. — Basilicon  j  3  Novell,  cxxxvii.  c.  2. — Basilicon 
hi.  i.  26.  I  in.  i.  c.  8. — Balsamon.  Schol.  ad  Norao- 

!  can.  Tit.  i.  c.  23. 


2  Novell,  vi.  c.  1. 


*  Leonis.  Novell.  Constit.  n. 


THE  QUINISEXT  IN  TRULLO. 


89 


enforcing  the  regulations  embodied  in  the  laws  of  Justinian.  Digami 
must  have  become  numerous  in  the  church,  for  the  prohibition  of 
their  ordination  is  renewed,  and  all  who  had  not  released  themselves 
from  such  forbidden  unions  by  June  15th  of  the  preceding  year  are 
condemned  to  suffer  deposition.  So  marriage  in  orders  had  evidently 
become  frequent,  for  all  guilty  of  it  are  enjoined  to  leave  their  wives, 
when,  after  a  short  suspension,  they  are  to  be  restored  to  their  posi¬ 
tion,  though  ineligible  to  promotion.1  A  much  severer  punishment 
is,  however,  provided  for  those  who  should  subsequently  be  guilty  of 
the  same  indiscretion,  for  all  such  infractions  of  the  rule  are  visited 
with  absolute  deposition 2 — thus  proving  that  it  had  fallen  into  desue¬ 
tude,  since  those  who  sinned  after  its  restoration  were  regarded  as 
much  more  culpable  than  those  who  had  merely  transgressed  an 
obsolete  law.  Even  bishops  had  neglected  the  restrictions  imposed 
upon  them  by  Justinian,  for  the  council  refers  to  prelates  in  Africa, 
Libya,  and  elsewhere,  who  lived  openly  with  their  wives;  and 
although  this  is  prohibited  for  the  future  under  penalty  of  deposition, 
and  although  all  wives  of  those  promoted  to  the  episcopate  are  directed 
to  be  placed  in  nunneries  at  a  distance  from  their  husbands,  yet  the 
remarkable  admission  is  made  that  this  is  done  for  the  sake  of  the 
people,  who  regarded  such  things  as  a  scandal,  and  not  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  changing  that  which  had  been  ordained  by  the  Apostles.3 

With  regard  to  the  future  discipline  of  the  great  body  of  the 
clergy,  the  council,  after  significantly  acknowledging  that  the  Roman 
church  required  a  promise  of  abstinence  from  married  candidates  for 
the  diaconate  and  priesthood,  proceeds  to  state  that  it  desires  to  adhere 
to  the  Apostolic  canon  by  keeping  inviolate  the  conjugal  relations  of 
those  in  holy  orders,  and  by  permitting  them  to  associate  with  their 
wives,  only  stipulating  for  continence  during  the  time  devoted  to  the 
ministry  of  the  sacraments.  To  put  an  end  to  all  opposition  to  this 
privilege,  deposition  is  threatened  against  those  who  shall  presume  to 
interfere  between  the  clergy  and  their  wives,  and  likewise  against  all 
who,  under  pretence  of  religion,  shall  put  their  wives  away.  At  the 
same  time,  in  order  to  promote  the  extension  of  the  church,  in  the 
foreign  provinces,  this  latter  penalty  is  remitted,  as  a  concession  to 


1  Quinisext.  can.  3. 

2  Ibid.  c.  6. 

3  Ibid.  can.  12,  48. — “  Hoc  autem 


dicimus  non  ad  ea  abolenda  et  evertenda 
quae  Apostolice  antea  constituta  sunt, 
sed  .  .  .  ne  status  ecclesiasticus  ullo 
probro  efficiatur." 


90 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 


the  prejudices  of  the  “Barbarians.”1  How  thoroughly  in  some 
regions  sacerdotal  marriage  had  come  to  be  the  rule  we  learn  from  a 
reference  to  Armenia,  where  the  Levitical  custom  of  the  Hebrews 
was  imitated,  in  the  creation  of  a  sacerdotal  caste,  transmitted  from 
father  to  son,  and  confined  to  the  priestly  houses.  This  limitation  is 
condemned  by  the  council,  which  orders  that  all  who  are  worthy  of 
ordination  shall  be  regarded  as  eligible.2 

The  Eastern  church  thus  formally  and  in  the  most  solemn  manner 
recorded  its  separate  and  independent  discipline  on  this  point,  and 
refused  to  be  bound  by  the  sacerdotalism  of  Rome.  It  thus  main¬ 
tained  the  customs  transmitted  from  the  early  period,  when  asceticism 
had  commenced  to  show  itself,  but  it  shrank  from  carrying  out  the 
principles  involved  to  their  ultimate  result,  as  was  sternly  attempted 
by  the  inexorable  logic  of  Rome.  The  system  thus  laid  down  was 
permanent,  for  throughout  the  East  the  Quinisext  was  received  un¬ 
question  ingly  as  a  general  council,  and  its  decrees  were  authoritative 
and  unalterable.  It  is  true  that  in  the  confusion  of  the  two  follow¬ 
ing  centuries  a  laxity  of  practice  gradually  crept  in,  by  which  those 
who  desired  to  marry  were  admitted  to  holy  orders  while  single,  and 
were  granted  two  years  after  ordination  during  which  they  were  at 
liberty  to  take  wives,  but  this  was  acknowledged  to  be  an  abuse,  and 
about  the  year  900  it  was  formally  prohibited  by  a  constitution  of 
Leo  the  Philosopher.3  Thus  restored,  the  Greek  church  has  pre- 


1  Quinisext.  c.  18,  30. 

2  Quinisext.  c.  33. — The  Armenian 
church  in  the  middle  ages,  was  exces¬ 
sively  severe  as  to  the  chastity  of  its 
ministers.  A  postulant  for  orders  was 
obliged  to  confess,  and  if  he  had  been 
guilty  of  a  single  lapse,  he  was  rejected. 
So  a  priest  in  orders  if  yielding  to  the 
weakness  of  the  flesh  out  of  wedlock 
was  expelled,  though  they  were  not 
obliged  to  part  with  their  wives,  and 
the  Greek  rule  permitting  marriage  in 
the  lower  orders  was  maintained. — 
Concil.  Armenor.  ann.  1362  Art.  60, 
58,  93  (Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  VII. 
366-7,  403). 

3  Leonis  Novell.  Constit.  ill. — It  is 
not  improbable  that  this  custom  resulted 
from  the  iconoclastic  schism  of  Leo  the 
Isaurian  and  Constantine  Copronymus, 
which  occupied  nearly  the  whole  of  the 
eighth  century.  These  emperors  found 
their  most  unyielding  enemies  in  the 
monks.  In  the  savage  persecutions 
which  disgraced  the  struggle,  Constnn- 


j  tine  endeavored  to  extirpate  monachism 
altogether.  The  accounts  which  his 
adversaries  have  transmitted  of  the  vio¬ 
lence  and  cruelties  which  he  perpetrated 
are  doubtless  exaggerated,  but  there  is 
likelihood  that  his  efforts  to  discounten¬ 
ance  celibacy,  as  the  foundation  of  the 
obnoxious  institution,  are  correctly 
reported.  “  Publice  defamavit  et  de- 
honestavit  liabitum  monacliorum  in 
hippodromo,  pnecipiens  unumquemque 
monachum  manutenere  mulierem,  et 
taliter  transire  per  hippodromum, 
sumptis  injuriis  ab  omni  populo  cumu- 
latis  ”  (Baronii  Annal.  ann.  766,  No. 
1).  He  ejected  the  monks  from  the 
monasteries,  which  he  turned  into 
barracks ;  some  of  the  monks  were 
tortured,  others  fled  to  the  mountains 
and  deserts,  where  they  suffered  every 
extremity,  while  others  again  succumb¬ 
ed  to  threats  and  temptations,  and  were 
publicly  married — “  alii  corporeis  vol- 
uptatibus  addicti,  suas  etiam  uxores  cir- 
cumducere  non  erubescebant  ”  (Ibid. 
No.  28,  29). 


RUSSIA — THE  NESTORI AN S. 


91 


served  its  early  traditions  unaltered  to  the  present  day.  Marriage 
in  orders  is  not  permitted,  nor  are  digami  admissible,  but  the  lower 
grades  of  the  clergy  are  free  to  marry,  nor  are  they  separated  from 
their  wives  when  promoted  to  the  sacred  functions  of  the  diaconate 
or  priesthood.  The  bishops  are  selected  from  the  regular  clergy  or 
monks,  and,  being  bound  by  the  vow  of  chastity,  are  of  course  un¬ 
married  and  unable  to  marry.  Thus  the  legislation  of  Justinian  is 
practically  transmitted  to  the  nineteenth  century.  Even  this  restric¬ 
tion  on  the  freedom  of  marriage  renders  it  difficult  to  preserve  the 
purity  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  Greek  church,  like  the  Latin,  is 
forced  occasionally  to  renew  the  Nicene  prohibition  against  the  resi¬ 
dence  of  suspected  women.1 

The  strongly  marked  hereditary  tendency,  which  is  so  distinguish¬ 
ing  a  characteristic  of  mediaeval  European  institutions  has  led,  in 
Russia  at  least,  since  the  time  of  Peter  the  Great,  to  the  customary 
transmission  of  the  priesthood,  and  even  of  individual  churches,  from 
father  to  son,  thus  creating  a  sacerdotal  caste.  To  such  an  extent 
has  this  been  carried  that  marriage  is  obligatory  on  the  parish  priest, 
and  custom  requires  that  the  wife  shall  be  the  daughter  of  a  priest. 
Some  of  the  results  of  this  are  to  be  seen  in  a  law  of  186T,  forbid¬ 
ding  for  the  future  the  aspirant  to  a  cure  from  marrying  the  daughter 
of  his  predecessor  or  undertaking  to  support  the  family  of  the  late 
incumbent  as  a  condition  precedent  to  obtaining  the  preferment.  It 
shows  how  entirely  the  duties  of  the  clergy  had  been  lost  in  the  sense 
of  property  and  hereditary  right  attaching  to  benefices,  leading  in¬ 
evitably  to  the  neglect  or  perfunctory  performance  of  ecclesiastical 
duties.2  We  shall  see  hereafter  how  narrowly  the  Latin  church  es¬ 
caped  a  similar  transformation,  and  how  prolonged  wTas  the  struggle 
to  avoid  it. 

One  branch  of  the  Eastern  church,  however,  relaxed  the  rules  of 
the  Quinisext.  In  431,  Nestorius,  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  was 
excommunicated  for  his  heretical  subtleties  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
Godhead  in  Christ.  Driven  out  from  the  Empire  by  the  orthodox 
authorities,  his  followers  spread  throughout  Mesopotamia  and  Persia, 

1  Synod.  Montis  Libani  ann.  1736 
P.  II.  c.  v.  No.  16,  17,  Tab.  I.  No.  11  ; 

P.  in.  c.  i.  No.  11  ;  P.  iv.  c.  ii.  No.  16. 

— Synod.  Ain-Traz  ann.  1835  c.  xii. 

Concil.  Collect.  Lacens.  II.  134,  138, 

62,  263,  366,  367,  585). 


2  London  “Academy,”  jl^u, 

1869,  p.  51. — See  also  “  The  Russian 
Clergy,”  by  Father  Gagarin,  London, 
1872  (London  Athenaeum,  No.  2334. 
p.  72-3). 


92 


THE  EASTERN  CHURCH. 


where,  by  the  end  of  the  century,  their  efforts  had  gradually  con¬ 
verted  nearly  the  wrhole  population.  About  the  year  480,  Barsuma, 
metropolitan  of  Nisibi,  added  to  his  Nestorian  heresy  the  guilt  of 
marrying  a  nun,  when  to  justify  himself  he  assembled  a  synod  in 
which  the  privilege  of  marriage  was  granted  not  only  to  priests,  but 
even  to  monks.  In  485,  Babueus,  Patriarch  of  Seleucia,  held  a 
council  which  excommunicated  Barsuma  and  condemned  his  licen¬ 
tious  doctrines ;  but,  about  ten  years  later,  a  subsequent  patriarch, 
Babeus,  in  the  council  of  Seleucia,  obtained  the  enactment  of  canons 
conferring  the  privilege  of  marriage  on  all  ranks  of  the  clergy,  from 
monk  to  patriarch.  Some  forty  years  later  a  debate  recorded  between 
the  Patriarch  Mar  Aba  and  King  Chosroes  shows  that  repeated  mar¬ 
riages  were  common  among  all  orders,  but  Mar  Aba  subsequently 
issued  a  canon  depriving  patriarchs  and  bishops  of  the  right,  and 
subjecting  them  to  the  rules  of  the  Latin  and  Greek  churches.1 

The  career  of  the  Nestorians  shows  that  matrimony  is  not  incom¬ 
patible  with  mission-work,  for  they  were  the  most  successful  mission¬ 
aries  on  record.  They  penetrated  throughout  India,  Tartary,  and 
China.  In  the  latter  empire  they  lasted  until  the  thirteenth  century; 
while  in  India  they  not  improbably  exercised  an  influence  in  modi¬ 
fying  the  doctrines  of  ancient  Brahmanism,2  and  the  Portuguese  dis¬ 
coverers  in  the  fifteenth  century  found  them  flourishing  in  Malabar. 
So  numerous  were  they  that  during  the  existence  of  the  Latin  king¬ 
dom  of  Jerusalem  they  are  described,  in  conjunction  with  the  mono- 
physite  sect  of  the  Jacobines,  as  exceeding  in  numbers  the  inhabitants 
of  the  rest  of  Christendom.3 


Another  segment  of  the  Eastern  church  may  properly  receive 
attention  here.  The  Abyssinians  and  Coptic  Christians  of  Egypt 
can  scarcely  in  truth  be  considered  a  part  of  the  Greek  church,  as 


1  For  these  details  from  the  collec¬ 
tion  of  Asseman  I  am  indebted  to  the 
Abate  Zaccaria’s  Nuova  Giustifica- 
zione  del  Celibato  Sacro,  pp.  129-30. 

2  The  strange  similarity  between 

o 

some  of  the  teachings  of  the  Bhaga- 
vad-gita  and  Christianity,  and  the  ap¬ 
parent  identity  of  the  name  and  of  some 
of  the  story  of  Krishna  with  those  of 
Christ,  would  seem  to  need  some  such 
explanation  as  the  above.  The  prob¬ 
lem  however  is  too  complicated  for  dis¬ 


cussion  here. — See  Weber's  Indian 
Literature  p.  238  and  Monier  Wil¬ 
liams’s  Indian  Wisdom  p.  136.  For 
the  question  of  St.  Thomas’s  Indian 
Apostolate  see  Hohlenberg’s  learned 
tract,  “  I)e  Originibus  et  Fatis  Eccles. 
Christ,  in  India  Orientali.”  Havniaj 
1822. 

3  Hi  omnes  Nestoriani  .  .  .  cum 
.Tacobinis  longe  plures  esse  dicuntur 
quam  Latini  et  G-rteci. — Jac.  de  Vit- 
riaco  Hist.  Ilierosol.  cap.  lxxvi. 


ABYSSINIA. 


93 


they  are  monophysite  in  belief,  and  have  in  many  particulars  adopted 
Jewish  customs,  such  as  circumcision,  &c.  Their  observances  as 
regards  marriage,  however,  tally  closely  with  the  canons  of  the 
Quinisext,  except  that  bishops  are  permitted  to  retain  their  wives. 
In  the  sixteenth  century,  Bishop  Zaga  Zabo,  who  was  sent  as  envoy 
to  Portugal  by  David,  King  of  Abyssinia,  left  behind  him  a  confes¬ 
sion  of  faith  for  the  edification  of  the  curious.  In  this  document  he 
describes  the  discipline  of  his  church  as  strict  in  forbidding  the  cler- 
icature  to  illegitimates ;  marriage  is  not  dissolved  by  ordination,  but 
second  marriage,  or  marriage  in  orders,  is  prohibited,  except  under 
dispensation  from  the  Patriarch,  a  favor  occasionally  granted  to  mag¬ 
nates  for  public  reasons.  Without  such  dispensation,  the  offender  is 
expelled  from  the  priesthood,  while  a  bishop  or  other  ecclesiastic 
convicted  of  having  an  illegitimate  child  is  forthwith  deprived  of  all 
his  benefices  and  possessions.  Monasteries,  moreover,  were  numer¬ 
ous  and  monachal  chastity  was  strictly  enforced.1  These  rules,  I 
presume,  are  still  in  force.  A  recent  traveller  in  those  regions  states 
that  “  if  a  priest  be  married  previous  to  his  ordination,  he  is  allowed 
to  remain  so ;  but  no  one  can  marry  after  having  entered  the  priest¬ 
hood” — while  a  mass  of  superstitious  and  ascetic  observances  has 
overlaid  religion,  until  little  trace  is  left  of  original  Christianity.2 


1  Calixt.  de  Conjug.  Cleric,  p.  415. — 
Osorii  de  Rebus  Emmanuelis  Regis 
Lusit.  Lib.  ix.  (Colon.  1574  p.  305  a). 

2  Parky  ns’s  Life  in  Abyssinia,  chap* 


xxxi. — Mr.  Parkyns  sums  up  about 
260  fast  days  in  the  year,  most  ot 
them  much  more  rigid  than  those 
observed  in  the  Catholic  church. 


VII. 


MONACHISM. 


The  Monastic  Orders  occupy  too  prominent  a  place  in  ecclesi¬ 
astical  history,  and  were  too  powerful  an  instrument  both  for  good 
and  evil,  to  be  passed  over  without  some  cursory  allusion,  although 
the  secular  clergy  is  more  particularly  the  subject  of  the  present 
sketch,  and  the  rise  and  progress  of  monachism  is  a  topic  too 
extensive  in  its  details  to  be  thoroughly  considered  in  the  space 
which  can  be  allotted  to  it. 

In  this,  as  in  some  other  forms  of  asceticism,  we  must  look  to 
Buddhism  for  the  model  on  which  the  Church  fashioned  her  institu¬ 
tions.  Ages  before  the  time  of  Sakyamuni,  the  life  of  the  anchorite 
had  become  a  favorite  mode  of  securing  the  moksha ,  or  supreme  good 
of  absorption  in  Brahma.  Buddhism,  in  throwing  open  the  way  of 
salvation  to  all  mankind,  popularized  this,  and  thus  multiplied  enor¬ 
mously  the  crowd  of  mendicants,  who  lived  upon  the  charity  of  the 
faithful  and  who  abandoned  all  the  cares  and  duties  of  life  in  the 
hope  of  advancing  a  step  in  the  scale  of  being  and  of  ultimately 
obtaining  the  highest  bliss  of  admission  to  Nirvana.  In  the  hopeless 
confusion  of  Hindu  chronology,  it  is  impossible  to  define  dates  with 
exactness,  but  we  know  that  at  a  very  early  period  these  Bhikshus 
and  Bhikshunis,  or  mendicants  of  either  sex,  were  organized  in  mon¬ 
asteries  (Viharas  or  Sangharamas)  erected  by  the  piety  of  the  faith¬ 
ful,  and  were  subjected  to  definite  rules,  prominent  among  which 
were  those  of  poverty  and  chastity,  which  subsequently  became  the 
foundation  of  all  the  Western  orders.  Probably  the  oldest  existing 
scripture  of  Buddhism  is  the  Pratimoksha,  or  collection  of  rules  for 
observance  by  the  bhikshus,  which  tradition,  not  without  probability, 
ascribes  to  Sakyamuni  himself.  In  this,  infraction  of  chastity  falls 
under  the  first  of  the  four  Parajika  rules;  it  is  classed,  with  murder, 
the  most  serious  offences  entailing  excommunication  and 


among 


BUDDHIST  INSTITUTIONS. 


t/1/ 


expulsion  without  forgiveness.  The  solicitation  of  a  woman  comes 
within  the  scope  of  the  thirteen  Sanghadisesa  rules,  entailing  penance 
and  probation,  after  which  the  offender  may  be  absolved  by  an  as¬ 
sembly  of  not  less  than  twenty  bhikshus.  Other  punishments  are 
allotted  for  every  suspicious  act,  and  the  utmost  care  is  shown  in 
the  regulations  laid  down  for  the  minutest  details  of  social  intercourse 
between  the  sexes.1 

Under  these  rules,  Buddhist  monachism  developed  to  an  extent 
which  more  than  rivals  that  of  its  W estern  derivative.  The  remains 
of  the  magnificent  Yiharas  still  to  be  seen  in  India  testify  at  once  to 
the  enormous  multitudes  which  found  shelter  in  them  and  to  the 
munificent  piety  of  the  monarchs  and  wealthy  men  who,  as  in  Europe, 
sought  to  purchase  the  favor  of  Heaven  by  founding  and  enlarging 
these  retreats  for  the  devotee.  In  China,  Buddhism  was  not  intro¬ 
duced  until  the  first  century  A.-  D.,  and  yet,  by  the  middle  of  the 
seventh  century,  in  spite  of  repeated  and  severe  persecutions,  the 
number  of  monasteries  already  amounted  to  3716,  while  two  hundred 
years  later  the  persecuting  Emperor  Wu-Tsung  ordered  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  no  less  than  4600 ;  and  at  the  present  day  it  is  estimated 
that  there  are  80,000  Buddhist  monks  in  the  environs  of  Pekin  alone. 
When,  in  the  seventh  century,  Hiouen-Thsang  visited  India,  he  de¬ 
scribes  the  Sansrharama  of  Nalanda  as  containing  ten  thousand  monks 
and  novices ;  and  the  later  pilgrim,  Fah-Hian,  found  fifty  or  sixty 
thousand  in  the  island  of  Cevlon.  In  the  fourteenth  centurv,  the 
city  of  Ilchi,  in  Chinese  Tartary,  possessed  fourteen  monasteries, 
averaging  three  thousand  devotees  in  each ;  while  in  Tibet,  at  the 
present  time,  there  are  in  the  vicinity  of  Lhassa  twelve  great  monas¬ 
teries,  containing  a  population  of  18,500  lamas.  In  Ladak,  the 
proportion  of  lamas  to  the  laity  is  as  one  to  thirteen ;  in  Spiti,  one 
to  seven ;  and  in  Burmah,  one  to  thirty.2  Great  as  were  the  pro¬ 
portions  to  which  European  monachism  grew,  it  never  attained 
dimensions  such  as  these. 

It  was  some  time,  however,  before  the  intercourse  between  East 
and  West  led  to  the  introduction  of  anchoritic  and  monastic  customs. 
The  first  rudimentary  development  of  a  tendency  in  such  direction 


1  Davids  &  Oldenberg’s  Vinava 
Texts,  Part  I.  pp.  4,  8,^14,  16,  32, 
35-7,  42,  47,  56. — Cf.  Beal’s  Catena 
pp.  209-14. — Burnouf,  Indroduction  a 
l’histoire  du  Buddhisme  indien.  2e  Ed. 
pp.  245-8. 


2  Beal’s  Chinese  Pilgrims  pp.  xxxviii., 
xl.,  155-9. — Schlagintweit’s  Buddhism 
in  Tibet,  pp.  164-5. — Wheeler’s  Hist, 
of  India,  III.  270. — Proc.  Boy.  Geog. 
Society,  in  London  “  Header ”  Nov.  17, 
1866. ' 


96 


MONACHISM. 


is  to  be  found  in  the  vows,  which,  as  stated  in  a  previous  section, 
had  already,  at  an  early  period  in  the  history  of  the  church,  become 
common  among  female  devotees.  In  fact  an  order  of  widows,  em¬ 
ployed  in  charitable  works  and  supported  from  the  offerings  of  the 
faithful,  was  apparently  one  of  the  primitive  institutions  of  the 
Apostles.  To  prevent  any  conflict  between  the  claims  of  the  world 
and  of  the  church,  St.  Paul  directs  that  they  shall  be  childless  and 
not  less  than  sixty  years  of  age,  so  that  on  the  one  hand  there  might 
be  no  neglect  of  the  first  duty  which  he  recognized  as  owing  to  the 
family,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  devotee  should  be  tempted 
by  the  flesh  to  quit  the  service  which  she  had  undertaken.1 

This  admirable  plan  may  be  considered  the  germ  of  the  countless 
associations  by  which  the  church  has  in  all  ages  earned  the  gratitude 
of  mankind  by  giving  to  Christianity  its  truest  practical  exposition. 
It  combined  a  refuge  for  the  desolate  with  a  most  efficient  organiza¬ 
tion  for  spreading  the  faith  and  administering  charity ;  and  there 
was  no  thought  of  marring  its  utility  by  rendering  it  simply  an 
instrument  for  exaggerating  and  propagating  asceticism.  St.  Paul, 
indeed,  expressly  commands  the  younger  ones  to  marry  and  bring  up 
children  ;2  and  he  could  little  have  anticipated  the  time  when  this 
order  of  widows,  so  venerable  in  its  origin  and  labors,  would,  by 
the  caprice  of  ascetic  progress,  come  to  be  regarded  as  degraded  in 
comparison  with  the  virgin  spouses  of  Christ,  who  selfishly  endeavored 
to  purchase  their  own  salvation  by  shunning  all  the  duties  imposed 
on  them  by  the  Creator.3  Nor  could  he  have  imagined  that,  after 
eighteen  centuries,  enthusiastic  theologians  would  seriously  argue  that 
Christ  and  his  Apostles  had  founded  regular  religious  orders,  bound 
by  the  three  customary  vows  of  chastity,  poverty,  and  obedience.4 


1  I.  Tim.  v.  3-14.  cf.  Act.  IX.  39-41. 
In  the  time  of  Tertullian  these  women 
were  regularly  ordained  (Ad  Uxor. 
Lib.  I.  c.  7).  This  was  forbidden  by 
the  council  of  Nicaea  (can.  19)  and  by 
that  of  Laodicea  (can.  11)  in  372.  In 
451,  however,  we  see  by  the  council  of 
Chalcedon  (can.  15)  that  the  ancient 
practice  had  been  revived.  The  au¬ 
thorities  on  the  question  will  he  found 
very  fully  given  by  Chr.  Lupus  (Scho- 
lion  in  Can.  15  Concil.  Clialced. — Opp. 
II.  90  sqq.).  Even  as  late  as  the  mid¬ 
dle  of  the  ninth  century  stringent  rules 
were  promulgated  to  punish  the  mar¬ 
riage  of  deaconesses  (Capitul.  Add.  III. 
Cap.  75.— Baluz.  I.  1191). 


2  Yolo  ergo  juniores  [viduas]  nu- 
bere,  filios  procreare,  matresfamilias 
esse,  nullam  occasionem  dare  adver- 
sario — I.  Tim.  v.  14. 

3  See  Leon.  I.  Epist.  lxxxvii.  cap.  2. 
(Harduin.  I.  1775).  This  was  not  so 
in  the  earlier  periods.  Tertullian  (De 
Prescription,  iii.),  in  alluding  to  the 
various  classes  of  ecclesiastics,  places 
the  widows  immediately  after  the  order 
of  deacons,  and  before  the  virgins. 

4  Nothing  is  so  illogical  as  the  logic 
resorted  to  in  order  to  prove  foregone 
conclusions.  Donato  Calvi  ( apud.  Pan- 
zini,  Pubhlica  Confessione  di  un  Prigi- 
oneiro,  Torino,  1865,  p.  Ill)  quotes  the 


DEVOTEES  IN  THE  PRIMITIVE  CHURCH. 


97 


In  the  early  church,  as  has  been  already  shown,  all  vows  of  conti¬ 
nence  and  dedication  to  the  service  of  God  were  a  matter  of  simple 
volition,  not  only  as  to  their  inception,  but  also  as  to  their  duration. 
The  male  or  female  devotee  was  at  liberty  to  return  to  the  world  and 
to  marry  at  any  time  ;l  although  during  the  purer  periods  of  perse¬ 
cution,  such  conduct  was  doubtless  visited  with  disapprobation  and 
was  attended  with  loss  of  reputation.  As,  moreover,  there  was  no 
actual  segregation  from  the  world  and  no  sundering  of  family  ties, 
there  was  no  necessity  for  special  rules  of  discipline.  When,  under 
the  Decian  persecution,  Paul  the  Thebsean,  and  shortly  afterwards 
St.  Antony,  retired  to  the  desert  in  order  to  satisfy  a  craving  for 
ascetic  mortification  which  could  only  be  satiated  by  solitude,  and 
thus  unconsciously  founded  the  vast  society  of  Egyptian  cenobites, 
they  gave  rise  to  what  at  length  became  a  new  necessity.2  The 
associations  which  gradually  formed  themselves  required  some  gov¬ 
ernment,  and  the  institution  of  monachism  became  too  important  a 
portion  of  the  church,  both  in  numbers  and  influence,  to  remain  long 
without  rules  of  discipline  to  regulate  its  piety  and  to  direct  its 


texts  Matt.  xix.  12,  Luke  xiv.  33  and 
Matt.  xix.  21,  27,  and  then  trium¬ 
phantly  concludes — “  Ben  lice  con- 
chiudere  chiaramente  da’sacri  Yangeli 
raccogliersi  fossero  gli  Apostoli  veri  reli- 
giosi  coi  tre  voti  della  religione  legati.” 

1  If  further  proof  of  this  he  required, 
beyond  what  has  already  been  incident¬ 
ally  adduced,  it  is  to  be  found  in  the 
19th  canon  of  the  council  of  Ancyra, 
held  about  the  year  314.  By  this,  the 
vow  of  celibacy  or  virginity  when 
broken  only  rendered  the  offender  in¬ 
capable  of  receiving  holy  orders.  He 
was  to  be  treated  as  a  “digamus,” 
showing  evidently  that  no  punishment 
was  inflicted,  beyond  the  disability 
which  attached  to  second  marriages. 

Even  in  the  time  of  St.  Augustin 
monks  were  frequently  married,  as  we 
learn  from  his  remarks  concerning  the 
heretics  who  styled  themselves  Apos- 
tolici  and  who  gloried  in  their  superior 
asceticism — “  eo  quod  in  suam  commu- 
nionem  non  reciperent  utentes  conjugi- 
bus  et  res  proprias  possidentes ;  quales 
habet  Catholica  [ecclesia]  et  monachos 
et  clericos  plurimos.” — Augustin,  de 
Hseresib.  No.  xl. 

Even  Epiphanius,  the  ardent  ad¬ 
mirer  of  virginity,  when  controverting 


1  the  errors  of  the  same  sect,  declares 
!  that  those  who  cannot  persevere  in  their 
vows  had  better  marrv  and  reconcile 

I  ^  %) 

themselves  by  penitence  to  the  church 
rather  than  to  sin  in  secret — “  Melius 
,  est  lapsum  a  cursu  palam  sibi  uxorem 
sumere  secundum  legem  et  a  virginitate 
multo  tempore  poenitentiam  agere  et  sic 
rursus  ad  ecclesiam  induci,  etc.” — 
Panar.  Haeres.  lxi. 

We  shall  see  hereafter  how  long  it 
j  took  to  enforce  the  strict  segregation 
of  the  cenobite  from  the  world. 

2  St.  Jerome  vindicates  for  Paul  the 
I  priority  which  was  commonly  ascribed 
to  Antony,  but  he  fully  admits  that  the 
latter  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of  popu¬ 
larizing  the  practice. — “Alii,  autem,  in 
quam  opinionem  vulgus  omne  consentit, 
asserunt  Antonium  hujus  propositi  ca¬ 
put,  quod  ex  parte  verum  est :  non  enim 
tarn  ipse  ante  omnes  fuit,  quam  ab  eo 
omnium  incitata  sunt  studia,”  etc. — 
Hieron.Vit.  Pauli  cap.  1. — Epist.  xxir. 

!  ad  Eustoch.  cap.  36. 

Jerome  also  asserts  that  monachism 
was  unknown  in  Palestine  and  Syria 
until  it  was  introduced  there  by  Hila- 
|  rion,  a  disciple  of  St.  Antony. — Yit. 

!  Ililarion.  cap.  14. 


98 


MONACHISM  . 


powers.  As  yet,  however,  a  portion  of  the  church,  adhering  to 
ancient  tradition,  looked  reprovingly  on  these  exaggerated  pietistic 
vagaries.  Lactantius,  for  instance,  in  a  passage  written  subsequent 
to  the  conversion  of  Constantine,  earnestly  denounces  the  life  of  a 
hermit  as  that  of  a  beast  rather  than  of  a  man,  and  urges  that  the 
bonds  of  human  society  ought  not  to  be  broken,  since  man  cannot 
exist  without  his  fellows.1 

It  was  in  vain  to  attempt  to  stem  the  tide  which  had  now  fairly 
set  in,  nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand  the  impulsion  which  drove  so 
many  to  abandon  the  world.  No  small  portion  of  pastoral  duty  con¬ 
sisted  in  exhortations  to  virginity,  the  praises  of  which  were  reiter¬ 
ated  with  ever  increasing  vehemence,  and  the  rewards  of  which,  in 
this  world  and  the  next,  were  magnified  with  constantly  augmenting 
promises.  Indeed,  a  perusal  of  the  writings  of  that  age  seems  to 
render  it  difficult  to  conceive  how  any  truly  devout  soul  could  remain 
involved  in  worldly  duties  and  pleasures,  when  the  abandonment  of 
all  the  ties  and  responsibilities  imposed  on  man  by  Providence  was 
represented  as  rendering  the  path  to  heaven  so  much  shorter  and 
more  certain,  and  when  every  pulpit  resounded  with  perpetual  ampli¬ 
fications  of  the  one  theme.  Equally  efficacious  with  the  timid  and 
slothful  was  the  prospect  of  a  quiet  retreat  from  the  confusion  and 
strife  which  the  accelerating  decline  of  the  empire  rendered  every 
day  wilder  and  more  hopeless ;  while  the  crushing  burdens  of  the 
state  drove  many,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  the  civil  power,  to 
seek  their  escape  in  the  exemptions  accorded  to  those  connected  with 
the  church.  When  to  these  classes  are  added  the  penitents — proto¬ 
types  of  St.  Mary  of  Egypt,  who  retired  to  the  desert  as  the  only 
refuge  from  her  profligate  life,  and  for  seventeen  years  waged  an 
endless  struggle  with  the  burning  passions  which  she  could  control 
but  could  not  conquer — it  is  not  difficult  to  estimate  how  vast  were 
the  multitudes  unconsciously  engaged  in  laying  the  foundations  of 
that  monastic  structure  which  was  eventually  to  overshadow  all 
Christendom.2 3  Indeed,  even  the  church  itself  at  times  became 
alarmed  at  the  increasing  tendency,  as  when  the  council  of  Sara¬ 
gossa,  in  381,  found  it  necessary  to  denounce  the  practice  of  eccle- 


1  Instit.  Divin.  Lib.  vi.  cap.  10. — 

Cf.  c.  17. 

3  As  early  as  the  commencement  of 
the  fourth  century,  we  find  Faustus, 
in  his“tu  quoque,!  defence  of  Mani- 


cha-ism,  asserting  that  in  the  Christian 
churches  the  number  of  professed  vir¬ 
gins  exceeded  that  of  women  not  bound 
by  vows. — Augustin,  contra  Faust. 
Manich.  Lib.  xxx.  c.  iv. 


RAPIDITY  OF  ITS  INCREASE. 


99 


siastics  abandoning  their  functions  and  embracing  the  monastic  life, 
which  it  assumes  was  done  from  unworthy  motives.1 

Soon  after  his  conversion,  Constantine  had  encouraged  the  pre¬ 
vailing  tendency  by  not  only  repealing  the  disabilities  imposed  by 
the  old  Roman  law  on  those  who  remained  unmarried,  but  by  extend¬ 
ing  the  power  of  making  wills  to  minors  who  professed  the  intention 
of  celibacy.2  His  piety  and  that  of  subsequent  emperors  speedily 
attributed  to  all  connected  with  the  church  certain  exemptions  from 
the  intolerable  municipal  burdens  which  were  eating  out  the  heart  of 
the  empire.  An  enormous  premium  was  thus  offered  to  swell  the 
ecclesiastical  ranks,  wThile,  as  the  number  of  the  officiating  clergy 
was  necessarily  limited,  the  influx  would  naturally  flow  into  the  mass 
of  monks  and  nuns  on  whose  increase  there  was  no  restriction,  and 
whose  condition  was  open  to  all,  with  but  slender  examination  into 
the  fitness  of  the  applicant.3  The  rapidly  increasing  wealth  of  the 
church,  and  the  large  sums  devoted  to  the  maintenance  of  all  orders 
of  the  clergy,  offered  additional  temptations  to  those  who  might 
regard  the  life  of  the  ascetic  as  the  means  of  securing  an  assured 
existence  of  idleness,  free  from  all  care  of  the  morrow.  If,  therefore, 
during  a  period  when  ridicule  and  persecution  were  the  portion  of 
those  who  vowed  perpetual  continence,  it  had  been  found  impossible 
to  avoid  the  most  deplorable  scandals,4  it  can  readily  be  conceived 
that  allurements  such  as  these  would  crowd  the  monastic  profession 
with  proselytes  of  a  most  questionable  character,  drawn  from  a  society 
so  frightfully  dissolute  as  that  of  the  fourth  century.  The  fierce 
declamations  of  St.  Jerome  afford  a  terrible  picture  of  the  disorders 


1  Propter  luxum  vanitatemque  prao- 
sumptam. — Concil.  Csesaraug.  I.  ann. 
381  c.  vi. — Disobedience  to  tbe  pro¬ 
hibition  is  threatened  with  prolonged 
suspension  from  communion. 

2  Cassiod.„Hist.  Tripart.  Lib.  i.  c.  9. 

3  See  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  ii. 
11.  9,  10,  11,  14,  etc.  This  evil  had  be¬ 
come  so  great  by  the  time  of  Valens 
that  in  365  that  emperor  declares  u  Qui- 
dam  ignaviae  sectatores  desertis  civita- 
tum  muneribus,  captant  solitudines  ac 

secreta,  et  specie  religion  is  caetibus  mo- 
nizonton  congregantur.”  The  most 
vigorous  measures  were  requisite,  “  erui 
e  latebris  consulta  prasceptione  manda- 
vimus,”  and  he  orders  the  culprits  to 
be  subjected  again  to  their  municipal 
duties  under  pain  of  forfeiture  of  all 


their  property  (Lib.  xn.  Cod.  Theod. 
Tit.  i.  1.  63).  In  376  the  same  emperor 
endeavored  to  enforce  the  obligation  of 
military  service  on  the  crowds  of  vigo¬ 
rous  men  who  filled  the  monasteries, 
and  on  their  resistance  a  persecution 
arose  in  which  manv  were  killed — 

V 

Hieron.  Euseb.  Cliron.  ann.  378. 

4  The  lamentations  of  St.  Cyprian 
have  already  been  alluded  to.  In  305 
the  council  of  Elvira  found  it  necessary 
to  denounce  perpetual  excommunication 
against  the  “  virgines  sacratse  ”  who 
abandoned  themselves  to  a  life  of  licen¬ 
tiousness,  while  those  guilty  only  of  a 
single  lapse  were  allowed  restoration  to 
communion  on  the  deathbed,  if  earned 
by  continual  penitence  (Concil.  Elib- 
erit.  c.  13). 


100 


MONA  CHISM. 


prevalent  among  those  vowed  to  celibacy,  and  of  the  hideous  crimes 
resorted  to  in  order  to  conceal  or  remove  the  consequences  of  guilt, 
showing  that  the  asceticism  enforced  by  Siricius  had  not  wrought  any 
improvement.1  The  necessity  of  subjecting  those  bound  by  vows  to 
established  rules  must  therefore  have  soon  become  generally  recog¬ 
nized;  and  although  as  we  have  already  seen,  they  were  free  at  any 
time  to  abandon  the  profession  which  they  had  assumed,  still,  while 
they  remained  as  members,  the  welfare  of  the  church  would  render 
all  right-minded  men  eager  to  hail  any  attempt  to  establish  rules  of 
wholesome  discipline.  The  first  authoritative  attempt  to  check  dis¬ 
orders  of  the  kind  is  to  be  found  in  the  first  council  of  Carthage, 
which  in  348  insisted  that  all  who,  shunning  marriage,  elected  the 
better  lot  of  chastity,  should  live  separate  and  solitary,  and  that  none 
should  have  access  to  them  under  penalty  of  excommunication ;  and 
in  381  the  Council  of  Saragossa  sought  to  remedy  the  evil  at  its  root 
by  forbidding  virgins  to  take  the  veil  unless  they  could  furnish  proof 
that  thay  were  at  least  forty  years  of  age.2 

Although  the  church,  in  becoming  an  affair  of  state,  had  to  a  great 
extent  sacrificed  its  independence,  still  it  enjoyed  the  countervailing 
advantage  of  being  able  to  call  upon  the  temporal  power  for  assistance 
when  its  own  authority  was  defied,  nor  was  it  long  in  requiring  this 
aid  in  the  enforcement  of  its  regulations.  Accordingly,  in  364,  we 
find  a  law  of  Jovian  forbidding,  under  pain  of  actual  or  civil  death, 
any  attempt  to  marry  a  sacred  virgin,3  the  extreme  severity  of  which 
is  the  best  indication  of  the  condition  of  morals  that  could  justify  a 
resort  to  penalties  so  exaggerated.  How  great  was  the  necessity  for 
reform,  and  how  little  was  actually  accomplished  by  these  attempts, 
may  be  estimated  from  an  effort  of  the  Council  of  Valence,  in  374, 
to  prevent  those  who  married  from  being  pardoned  after  too  short  a 
penance,4  and  from  the  description  which  ten  years  later  Pope  Siricius 


1  Piget  dicere  quot  quotidie  virgines 
ruant,  quantas  de  suo  gremio  mater 
perdat  ecclesia:  super  quae  sidera  ini- 
micus  superbus  ponat  tlironum  suum  ; 
quot  petras  excavet  et  habitet  coluber 
in  foraminibus  earum.  Yideas  pleras- 
que  viduas  antequam  nuptas,  infelicem 
eonscientiam  mutata  tantum  veste 
protegere.  Quas  nisi  tumor  uteri,  et 
infantum  prodiderit  vagitus,  sanctas  | 
et  castas  se  esse  gloriantur,  et  erecta  j 
cervice  et  ludentibus  pedibus  incedunt. 
Aliae  vero  sterilitatem  praebibunt,  et  ! 
necdum  sati  hominis  homicidium  faci- 


unt.  Nonnullae  cum  se  senserint  con- 
cepisse  de  scelere,  abortii  venena  med- 
itantur,  et  frequenter  etiam  ipsae 
commortuae,  trium  criminum  reae,  ad 
inferos  producuntur,  homicidae  suae, 
Cliristi  adulterae,  necdum  nati  filii  par- 
ricidae — Hieron.  Epist.  xxii.  ad  Eus- 
tocli.  c.  5. 

2  Concil.  Carthag.  1.  c.  3. — Concil. 
Caesaraugust.  I.  c.  8. 

3  Lib.  ix.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  xxv.  1.  2. 

4  Concil.  Valent.  I.  ann.  374  can.  ii. 


EARLY  SYSTEMS  OF  DISCIPLINE. 


101 


gives  of  the  unbridled  and  shameless  license  indulged  in  by  both 
sexes  in  violation  of  tbeii*  monastic  vows.1 


Certain  definite  rules  for  the  governance  of  these  constantly  in¬ 
creasing  crowds  of  all  stations,  conditions,  and  characters,  who  were 
obviously  so  ill-fitted  for  the  obligations  which  they  had  assumed, 
became  of  course  necessary,  but  it  was  long  before  they  assumed  an 
irrevocable  and  binding  force.  The  treatise  which  is  known  as  the 
rule  of  St.  Oriesis  is  only  a  long  and  somewhat  mystic  exhortation 
to  asceticism.  That  which  St.  Pachomius  is  said  to  have  received 
from  an  angel  is  manifestly  posterior  to  the  date  of  that  saint,  and 
probably  belongs  to  the  commencement  of  the  fifth  century.  Minute 
as  are  its  instructions,  and  rigid  as  are  its  injunctions  respecting 
every  action  of  the  cenobite,  yet  it  fully  displays  the  voluntary 
nature  of  the  profession  and  the  lightness  of  the  bonds  which  tied 
the  monk  to  his  order.  A  stranger  applying  for  admission  to  a 
monastery  was  exposed  only  to  a  probation  of  a  few  days,  to  test  his 
sincerity  and  to  prove  that  he  was  not  a  slave ;  no  vows  were  im¬ 
posed,  only  his  simple  promise  to  obey  the  rules  being  required.  If 
he  grew  tired  of  ascetic  life,  he  departed,  but  he  could  not  be  again 
taken  back  without  penitence  and  the  consent  of  the  archimandrite.2 
Even  female  travellers  applying  for  hospitality  were  not  refused 
admittance,  and  an  inclosure  was  set  apart  for  them,  where  they 
were  entertained  with  special  honor  and  attention ;  a  place  was 
likewise  provided  for  them  in  which  to  be  present  at  vespers.3 

A  similar  system  of  discipline  is  manifested  in  the  detailed  state¬ 
ment  of  the  regulations  of  the  Egyptian  monasteries  left  us  by  John 
Cassianus,  Abbot  of  St.  Victor  of  Marseilles,  who  died  in  448.  No 
vows  or  religious  ceremonies  were  required  of  the  postulant  for 
admission.  He  was  proved  by  ten  days’  waiting  at  the  gate,  and  a 
year’s  probation  inside,  yet  the  slender  tie  between  him  and  the  com¬ 
munity  is  shown  by  the  preservation  of  his  worldly  garments,  to  be 
returned  to  him  in  case  of  his  expulsion  for  disobedience  or  discon- 


1  Postea  vero  in  abruptum  conscien- 
tise  desperatione  producti,  de  illicitis 
complexibus  libere  tilios  procreaverint, 
quod  et  public®  leges  et  ecclesiastica 
juracondemnant. — Siricii  Epist.  i.  c.  6. 

2  Regul.  S.  Pachom.  c.  26,  79,  95. — 

The  Rule  which  passes  under  the  name 
of  John,  Bishop  of  Jerusalem,  I  believe 


is  universally  acknowledged  to  be  spu¬ 
rious  and  therefore  requires  no  special 
reference. 

3  Ibid.  c.  29.  This  is  in  particularly 
striking  contrast  with  mediaeval  mon- 
achism,  which,  as  we  shall  see  here¬ 
after,  considered  the  sacred  precincts 
polluted  by  the  foot  of  woman. 


102 


MONACHISM  . 


tent,  and  also  by  the  refusal  to  receive  from  him  the  gift  of  his 
private  fortune — although  no  one  within  the  sacred  walls  was  per¬ 
mitted  to  call  the  simplest  article  his  own — lest  he  should  leave  the 
convent  and  then  claim  to  revoke  his  donation,  as  not  unfrequently 
happened  in  institutions  which  neglected  this  salutary  rule.1  So,  in 
a  series  of  directions  for  cenobitic  life,  appended  to  a  curious  Arabic 
version  of  the  Nicene  canons,  the  punishment  provided  for  persistent 
disobedience  and  turbulence  is  expulsion  of  the  offender  from  the 
monastery.2 

As  a  temporary  refuge  from  the  trials  of  life,  where  the  soul  could 
be  strengthened  by  seclusion,  meditation,  peaceful  labor,  and  rigid 
discipline,  thousands  must  have  found  the  institution  of  Monachism 
most  beneficial  who  had  not  resolution  enough  to  give  themselves  up 
to  a  life  of  ascetic  devotion  and  privation.  These  facilities  for 
entrance  and  departure,  however,  only  rendered  more  probable  the 
admission  of  the  turbulent  and  the  worldly;  and  the  want  of  stringent 
and  effective  regulations  must  have  rendered  itself  every  day  more 
apparent,  as  the  holy  multitudes  waxed  larger  and  more  difficult  to 
manage,  and  as  the  empire  became  covered  with  wandering  monks, 
described  by  St.  Augustin  as  beggars,  swindlers,  and  peddlers  of  false 
relics,  who  resorted  to  the  most  shameless  mendacity  to  procure  the 
means  of  sustaining  their  idle  and  vagabond  life.3 

It  was  this,  no  doubt,  which  led  to  the  adoption  and  enforcement 
of  the  third  of  the  monastic  vows — that  of  obedience — as  being  the 
only  mode  by  which  during  the  period  when  residence  was  voluntary, 
the  crowds  of  devotees  could  be  kept  in  a  condition  of  subjection. 
To  what  a  length  this  was  carried,  and  how  completely  the  system  of 
religious  asceticism  succeeded  in  its  object  of  destroying  all  human 
feeling,  is  well  exemplified  by  the  shining  example  of  the  holy  Mucius, 
who  presented  himself  for  admission  in  a  monastery,  accompanied  by 
his  child,  a  boy  eight  years  of  age.  His  persistent  humility  gained 
for  him  a  relaxation  of  the  rules,  and  father  and  son  were  admitted 
together.  To  test  his  worthiness,  however,  they  were  separated,  and 


1  Cassian.  tie  Caenob.  Instit.  Lib. 
iv.  c.  3,  4,  5,  6,  13. — Cassianus  de-  t 
dares  chastity  to  be  the  virtue  by 
which  men  are  rendered  most  like 
angels. 

2  De  Monach.  Decret.  can.  x.  (Har- 
duin.  Concil.  I.  498.) 

5  Nusquam  missos,  nusquam  fivos. 


nusquam  stantes,  nusquam  sedentes. 
Alii  membra  martyrum,  si  tamen  mar- 
tyrum,  venditant;  alii  fimbrias  et  phy- 
lacteria  sua  magnificant  .  .  .  et  omnes 
pctunt,  omnes  exigunt,  aut  sumptus 
lucrosse  egestatis,  aut  simulat*  pretium 
sanctitatis  etc. — Augustin,  de  Opere 
Monachor.  cap.  28. 


NECESSITY  OF  ABSOLUTE  RULES. 


103 


all  intercourse  forbidden.  His  patience  encouraged  a  further  trial. 
The  helpless  child  was  neglected  and  abused  systematically,  but  all 
the  perverse  ingenuity  which  rendered  him  a  mass  of  filth  and  visited 
him  with  perpetual  chastisement  failed  to  excite  a  sign  of  interest  in 
the  father.  Finally  the  abbot  feigned  to  lose  all  patience  with  the 
little  sufferer’s  moans,  and  ordered  Mucius  to  cast  him  in  the  river. 
The  obedient  monk  carried  him  to  the  bank  and  threw  him  in  with 
such  promptitude  that  the  admiring  spectators  were  barely  able  to 
rescue  him.  All  that  is  wanting  to  complete  the  hideous  picture  is 
the  declaration  of  the  abbot  that  in  Mucius  the  sacrifice  of  Abraham 
was  completed.1  This  epitomizes  the  whole  system — the  transfer  to 
man  of  the  obedience  due  to  God — and  shows  how  little,  by  this  time, 
was  left  of  the  hopeful  reliance  on  a  beneficent  God  which  dis¬ 
tinguished  the  primitive  church,  and  which  led  Athenagoras,  in  the 
second  century,  to  argue  from  the  premises  u  God  certainly  impels  no 
one  to  those  things  which  are  unnatural.” 

The  weaker  sex,  whether  from  the  greater  value  attached  to  the 
purity  of  woman  or  from  her  presumed  frailty,  as  well  as  from  some 
difference  in  the  nature  of  the  engagement  entered  into,  was  the  first 
to  become  the  subject  of  distinct  legislation,  and  the  frequency  of  the 
efforts  required  shows  the  difficulty  of  enforcing  the  rule  of  celibacy 
and  chastity.  Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  a  law  of  Jovian 
which,  as  early  as  364,  denounced  the  attempt  to  marry  a  nun  as  a 
capital  crime.  Subsequent  canons  of  the  church  show  that  this  was 
wholly  ineffectual.  The  council  of  Valence,  in  3T4,  endeavored  to 
check  such  marriages.  The  synod  of  Rome,  in  384,  alludes  with 
horror  to  these  unions,  which  it  stigmatizes  as  adultery,  and  drawing 
a  distinction  between  virgins  professed  and  those  who  had  taken  the 
veil,  it  prescribes  an  indefinite  penance  before  they  can  be  received 
back  into  the  church,  but  at  the  same  time  it  does  not  venture  to 
order  their  separation  from  their  husbands.2  A  year  later,  the  bolder 
Siricius  commands  both  monks  and  nuns  guilty  of  unchastity  to  be 


1  Cassian.  Lib.  v.  c.  27,  28.  The  ex¬ 
travagant  lengths  to  which  this  implicit 
subjection  was  habitually  carried  are 
further  illustrated  by  Cassianus  in  Lib. 
iw.  c.  10. 

The  same  spirit  is  shown  in  the  story 
told  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  who  took 
with  him  into  the  garden  two  novices 
to  assist  him  in  planting  cabbages.  He 
commenced  by  setting  out  the  vegeta- 1 


hies  with  their  heads  in  the  earth  and 
their  roots  in  the  air.  One  of  the 
novices  ventured  to  remonstrate — 
“Father,  that  is  not  the  way  to  make 
cabbages  grow  ” — “  My  son,”  inter¬ 
rupted  the  Saint,  “you  are  not  fitted 
for  our  order,” — and  he  dismissed  the 
incautious  youth  on  the  spot. 

2  Synod.  Roman,  ann.  384  c.  1,2. 


104 


M  O  N  A  C  H  I  S  M  . 


imprisoned,  but  he  makes  no  allusion  to  marriage.1  Notwithstanding 
the  fervor  of  St.  Augustin’s  admiration  for  virginity  and  the  earnest¬ 
ness  with  which  he  waged  war  in  favor  of  celibacy,  he  pronounces 
that  the  marriage  of  nuns  is  binding,  ridicules  those  who  consider  it 
as  invalid,  and  deprecates  the  evil  results  of  separating  man  and  wife 
under  such  circumstances,  but  yet  his  asceticism,  satisfied  with  this 
concession  to  common  sense,  pronounces  such  unions  to  be  worse  than 
adulterous.2  From  this  it  is  evident  that  these  infractions  of  disci¬ 
pline  were  far  from  uncommon,  and  that  the  stricter  churchmen 
already  treated  such  marriages  as  null  and  void,  which  resulted  in 
the  husbands  considering  themselves  at  liberty  to  marry  again.  Such 
view  of  monastic  vows  was  not  sustained  by  the  authorities  of  the 
church,  for  about  the  same  period  Innocent  I.,  like  St.  Augustin, 
while  condemning  such  marriages  as  worse  than  adulterous,  admitted 
their  validity  by  refusing  communion  to  the  offenders  until  one  of 
the  partners  in  guilt  should  be  dead;  and,  like  the  synod  of  384,  he 
considered  the  transgression  as  somewhat  less  culpable  in  the  pro¬ 
fessed  virgin  than  in  her  who  had  consummated  her  marriage  with 
Christ  by  absolutely  taking  the  veil.3  It  was  probably  this  assumed 
marriage  with  Christ — a  theory  which  St.  Cyprian  shows  to  be  as 
old  as  the  third  century,  and  which  is  very  strongly  stated  by  Inno¬ 
cent — which  rendered  the  church  so  much  more  sensitive  as  to  the 
frailty  of  the  female  devotees  than  to  that  of  the  men.  As  yet, 
however,  the  stability  of  such  marriages  was  generally  accepted 
throughout  the  church,  for,  a  few  years  before  the  epistle  of  Inno- 


1  Siricii  Epist.  1,  c.  6. — A  rather! 
curious  episode  in  monastic  discipline  ! 
is  a  law  promulgated  in  890  by  Theo¬ 
dosius  the  Great  prohibiting  nuns  from 
shaving  their  heads  under  severe  penal¬ 
ties.  “Feminae  quae  crinem  suum  con¬ 
tra  divinas  humanasque  leges  instinctu 
persuasae  professionis  absciderint  ab  ec- 
clesiae  foribus  arceantur,”  and  any 
bishop  permitting  them  to  enter  a  church 
is  threatened  with  deposition  —  Lib. 
xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  Tit.  ii.  1.  27. 

2  De  Bono  Viduit.  c.  10,  11. — Tt  will 
be  seen  hereafter  that  in  the  twelfth 
century  the  church  adopted  as  a  rule  of 
discipline  the  practices  condemned  by 
St.  Augustin,  and  that  in  the  sixteenth 
centurv  the  council  of  Trent  elevated 

V  B 

it  into  a  point  of  faith. 

9  Innocent.  Epist.  ad  Victricium.  c. 


12,  13. — The  difficulty  of  the  questions 
which  arose  in  establishing  the  monastic 
system  is  shown  in  an  epistle  of  Leo  I. 
to  the  Mauritanian  Bishops  concerning 
|  some  virgins  professed  who  had  suffered 
violence  from  the  Barbarians.  He  de- 
J  cides  that  they  had  committed  no  sin, 
and  could  be  admitted  to  communion  if 
they  persevered  in  a  life  of  chastity  and 
religious  observance,  but  that  they 
could  not  continue  to  be  numbered 
with  the  holy  maidens,  while  yet  they 
were  not  to  be  degraded  to  the  order  of 
widows ;  and  he  further  requires  that 
they  shall  exhibit  their  sense  of  shame 
ami  humiliation.  The  problem  evi¬ 
dently  was  one  which  transcended  the 
acuteness  even  of  Leo  to  solve — Leonis 
I.  Epist.  Episcop.  per  Caesarien.  Maur- 
itan.  cap.  ii.  v.  (Harduin.  I.  1775-6). 


VOWS  NOT  IRREVOCABLE. 


105 


cent  we  find  it  enunciated  by  the  first  council  of  Toledo,  which  decided 
that  the  nun  who  married  was  not  admissible  to  penitence  during  the 
life  of  her  husband,  unless  she  separated  herself  from  him.1 

It  is  evident  from  all  this  that  an  effort  had  been  made  to  have 
such  marriages  condemned  as  invalid,  and  that  it  had  failed.  We 
see,  however,  that  the  lines  had  gradually  been  drawn  more  tightly 
around  the  monastic  order,  that  the  vows  could  no  longer  be  shaken 
off  with  ease,  and  that  there  was  a  growing  tendency  to  render  the 
monastic  character  ineffaceable  when  once  assumed.  Towards  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century,  however,  a  reaction  took  place,  possibly 
because  the  extreme  views  may  have  been  found  impracticable.  Thus 
Leo  I.  treats  recalcitrant  cenobites  with  singular  tenderness.  He  de¬ 
clares  that  monks  cannot  without  sin  abandon  their  profession,  and 
therefore  that  he  who  returns  to  the  world  and  marries  must  redeem 
himself  by  penitence,  for  however  honorable  be  the  marriage-tie  and 
the  active  duties  of  life,  still  it  is  a  transgression  to  desert  the  better 
path.  So  professed  virgins,  who  throw  off  the  habit  and  marry, 
violate  their  duty,  and  those  who  in  addition  to  this  have  been  regu¬ 
larly  consecrated  commit  a  great  crime — and  yet  no  further  punish¬ 
ment  is  indicated  for  them;2  and  the  little  respect  still  paid  to  the 
indelible  character  claimed  for  monachism  is  shown  by  the  manner  in 
which  the  civil  power  was  ready  to  interfere  for  the  purpose  of  put¬ 
ting  an  end  to  some  of  the  many  abuses  arising  from  monastic  insti¬ 
tutions.  In  458  Majorian  promulgated  a  law  in  which  he  inveighs 
with  natural  indignation  against  the  parents  who,  to  get  rid  of  their 
offspring,  compel  their  unhappy  daughters  to  enter  convents  at  a 
tender  age,  and  he  orders  that,  until  the  ardor  of  the  passions  shall 
be  tempered  by  advancing  years,  no  vows  shall  be  administered. 
The  minimum  age  for  taking  the  veil  is  fixed  at  forty  years  and 
stringent  measures  are  provided  for  insuring  its  observance.  If  in¬ 
fringed  by  order  of  the  parents,  or  by  an  orphan  girl  of  her  own 
free  will,  one-third  of  all  the  possessions  of  the  offender  is  confiscated 
to  the  state,  and  the  ecclesiastics  officiating  at  the  ceremony  are 
visited  with  the  heavy  punishment  of  proscription.  A  woman  forced 
into  a  nunnery,  if  her  parents  die  before  she  reaches  the  age  of  forty, 
is  declared  to  be  free  to  leave  it  and  to  marry,  nor  can  she  be  dis- 


1  Concil.  Toletan.  I.  c.  16. 

a  Leo.  Epist.  ad  Rusticurn  e.  12,  13, 
14.  So  the  second  council  of  Arles,  in 


441  (can.  52),  excommunicates  the  nun 
who  marries  until  due  penance  shall 
have  been  performed,  hut  does  not  in¬ 
dicate  separation. 


106 


MONACHISM. 


inherited  thereafter.1  Fruitless  as  this  well-intentioned  effort  proved, 
it  is  highly  suggestive  as  to  the  wrongs  which  were  perpetrated  under 
the  name  of  religion,  the  stern  efforts  felt  to  be  requisite  for  their 
prevention,  and  the  power  exercised  to  annul  the  vows. 

In  the  East,  the  tendency  was  to  give  a  more  rigid  and  unalterable 
character  to  the  vows,  nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand  the  cause. 
Both  church  and  state  began  to  feel  the  necessity  of  reducing  to  sub¬ 
jection  under  some  competent  authority  the  vast  hordes  of  idle  and 
ignorant  men  who  had  embraced  monastic  life.  In  the  West,  niona- 
chism  was  as  yet  in  its  infancy,  and  was  to  be  stimulated  rather  than 
to  be  dreaded,  but  it  was  far  otherwise  in  the  East,  where  the  influ¬ 
ence  of  the  ascetic  ideas  of  India  was  much  more  direct  and  imme¬ 
diate.  The  examples  of  Antony  and  Pachomius  had  brought  them 
innumerable  followers.  The  solitudes  of  the  deserts  had  become 
peopled  with  vast  communities,  and  as  the  contagion  spread,  monas¬ 
teries  arose  everywhere  and  were  rapidly  filled  and  enlarged.2  The 
blindly  bigoted  and  the  turbulently  ambitious  found  a  place  among 
those  Avhose  only  aim  was  retirement  and  peace;  while  the  authority 
wielded  by  the  superior  of  each  establishment,  through  the  blind 
obedience  claimed  under  monastic  vows,  gave  him  a  degree  of  powder 
which  rendered  him  not  only  important  but  dangerous.  The  monks 
thus  became  in  time  a  body  of  no  little  weight  which  it  behooved  the 
church  to  thoroughly  control,  as  it  might  become  efficient  for  good  or 
evil.  By  encouraging  and  directing  it,  she  gained  an  instrument  of 
incalculable  force,  morally  and  physically,  to  consolidate  her  authority 
and  extend  her  influence.  How  that  influence  was  used,  and  how 
the  monks  became  at  times  a  terror  even  to  the  state  is  written 
broadly  on  the  history  of  the  age.  Even  early  in  the  fifth  century 
the  hordes  of  savage  Nitrian  cenobites  were  the  janizaries  of  the 
fiery  Cyril,  with  which  he  lorded  it  over  the  city  of  Alexandria,  and 
almost  openly  bade  defiance  to  the  imperial  authority.  The  tumult 
in  which  Orestes  nearly  lost  his  life,  the  banishment  of  the  Jews,  and 
the  shocking  catastrophe  of  Hypatia  show  how  dangerous  an  element 
to  society  they  were  even  then,  when  under  the  guidance  of  an  able 


1  Novell.  Majorian.  Tit.  vi.  This 
law  continued  in  force  for  but  five  years, 
being  abrogated  in  463  by  Severus. — 
Novell.  Severi.  Tit.  i. 


2  For  the  ascetic  extravagances  which 
accompanied  the  development  of  mona- 
cliism  the  reader  is  referred  to  the  vig¬ 
orous  summary  by  Mr.  Lecky  in  his 
History  of  European  Morals. 


LEGISLATION  IN  THE  EAST. 


107 


and  unscrupulous  leader.1  So  the  prominent  part  taken  by  the 
monks  in  the  deplorable  Nestorian  and  Eutychian  controversies,  the 
example  of  the  Abbot  Barsumas  at  the  Robber  Synod  in  Ephesus, 
the  exploits  of  Theodosius  of  Jerusalem  and  Peter  of  Antioch,  who 
drove  out  their  bishops  and  usurped  the  episcopal  chairs,  the  career 
of  Eutyches  himself,  the  bloodthirsty  rabble  of  monks  who  controlled 
the  synod  of  Ephesus  and  endeavored  to  overawe  that  of  Chalcedon, 
and,  in  the  succeeding  century,  the  insurrections  against  the  Emperor 
Anastasius  which  were  largely  attributed  to  their  efforts — all  these 
were  warnings  not  lightly  to  be  neglected.  The  monks,  in  fact, 
were  fast  becoming  not  only  disagreeable  but  even  dangerous  to  the 
civil  power;  their  organization  and  obedience  to  their  leaders  gave 
them  strength  to  seriously  threaten  the  influence  even  of  the  hierarchy, 
and  the  effort  to  keep  them  strictly  under  subjection  and  within  their 
convent  walls  became  necessary  to  the  peace  of  both  church  and  state. 

At  the  council  of  Chalcedon,  in  451,  the  hierarchy  had  their 
revenge  for  the  insults  which  they  had  suffered  two  years  before  in 
the  Robber  Synod.  A  large  portion  of  the  monks,  infected  with 
Eutychianism,  came  into  direct  antagonism  with  the  bishops,  whom 
they  defied.  With  the  aid  of  the  civil  power,  the  bishops  triumphed, 
and  endeavored  to  put  an  end  for  the  future  to  monastic  insubordina¬ 
tion,  by  placing  the  monasteries  under  the  direct  control  and  super¬ 
vision  of  the  secular  prelates.  A  series  of  canons  ayrs  adopted  which 
declared  that  monks  and  nuns  were  not  at  liberty  to  marry;  but 
while  excommunication  was  the  punishment  provided  for  the  offence, 
poAver  was  given  to  the  bishops  to  extend  mercy  to  the  offenders. 
At  the  suggestion  of  the  Emperor  Marcian,  the  council  deplored  the 
turbulence  of  the  monks  Avho,  leaving  their  monasteries,  stirred  up 
confusion  everyA\There,  and  it  commanded  them  to  devote  themselves 
solely  to  prayer  and  fasting  in  the  spot  Avhich  they  had  chosen  as  a 
retreat  from  the  world.  It  forbade  them  to  abandon  the  holy  life  to 
which  they  had  devoted  themselves,  and  pronounced  the  dread  sen¬ 
tence  of  the  anathema  on  the  renegades  who  refused  to  return  and 


1  Socrat.  Hist.  Eccles.  Lib.  vn.  c.  13, 
14,  15. — Even  before  this,  in  the  prov¬ 
ince  of  Africa,  the  political  utility  of 
such  enthusiastic  disciples  had  been 
recognized  and  acted  on.  At  the  coun¬ 
cil  of  Carthage,  in  411,  where  the 
Donatists  were  condemned,  the  Imperial 
Commissioner,  in  pronouncing  sentence, 
warned  the  Donatist  bishops  that  they 


must  restrain  the  turbulent  monks 
within  their  dioceses — Ii  autem  qui 
in  praesidiis  suis  circumcellionum  turbas 
se  habere  cognoscunt,  sciant  nisi  eorum 
insolentiam  omnimodis  comprimere  et 
refrenare  gestierint,  maxime  ea  loca 
fisco  mox  occupanda.” — Concil.  Car- 
thag.  ann.  411  Cognit.  in.  cap.  ult. 
(Harduin.  I.  1190.) 


108 


MON  ACHISM  . 


undergo  due  penance.  No  monastery  was  to  be  founded  without  the 
license  of  the  bishop  of  the  locality,  and  he  alone  could  give  permis¬ 
sion  to  a  monk  to  leave  it  for  any  purpose.1 

This  legislation  was  well  adapted  to  the  end  in  view,  but  the  evil 
was  too  deep-seated  and  too  powerful  to  be  thus  easily  eradicated. 
Finding  the  church  unable  to  enforce  a  remedy,  the  civil  power  was 
compelled  to  intervene.  As  early  as  890  Theodosius  the  Great  had 
ordered  the  monks  to  confine  themselves  strictly  to  deserts  and  soli¬ 
tudes.2  Two  years  later  he  repealed  this  law  and  allowed  them  to 
enter  the  cities.3  This  laxity  was  abused,  and  in  466  the  Emperors 
Leo  and  Anthemius  issued  an  edict  forbidding  for  the  future  all 
monks  to  go  beyond  the  walls  of  their  monasteries  on  any  pretext, 
except  the  apocrisarii,  or  legal  officers,  on  legitimate  business  alone, 
and  these  were  strictly  enjoined  not  to  engage  in  religious  disputes, 
not  to  stir  up  the  people,  and  not  to  preside  over  assemblages  of  any 
nature.4 

History  shows  us  how  little  obedience  this  also  received,  nor  is  it 
probable  that  much  more  attention  was  paid  to  the  imperial  rescript 
when,  in  532,  Justinian  confirmed  the  legislation  of  his  predecessors, 
and  added  provisions  forbidding  those  who  had  once  taken  the  vows 
from  returning  to  the  world  under  penalty  of  being  handed  over  to 
the  curia  of  their  municipality,  with  confiscation  of  their  property, 
and  personal  punishment  if  penniless.5  Had  the  effort  then  been 
successful,  he  would  not  have  been  under  the  necessity  of  renewing 
it  in  535  by  a  law  making  over  to  the  monastery,  by  way  of  satis¬ 
faction  to  God,  the  property  of  any  monk  presuming  to  abandon  a 
life  of  religion  and  returning  to  the  cares  of  the  world.6  The  preva¬ 
lent  laxity  of  manners  is  further  shown  by  another  provision  accord¬ 
ing  to  which  the  monk  who  received  orders  was  not  allowed  to 
marry,  even  if  he  entered  grades  in  which  marriage  was  permitted 
to  the  secular  clergy,  the  penalty  for  taking  a  wdfe  or  a  concubine 
being  degradation  and  dismissal,  with  incapacity  for  serving  the 
state.7  Ten  years  later,  further  legislation  was  found  necessary,  and 
at  length  the  final  expedient  was  hit  upon,  by  which  the  apostate 


1  Concil.  Chalced.  c.  4,  7,  16.  The 
most  important  of  these,  the  fourth 
canon,  was  laid  before  the  council  bv 
the  Emperor  in  person. 

*  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  iii.  1. 

s  Lib.  xvi.  Cod.  Theod.  iii.  2. 


4  Const.  29  Cod.  i.  3. 

5  Const.  53  §  1  Cod.  i.  3. 

6  Novell,  v.  c.  4,  6. 

7  Novell,  v.  c.  8. 


IRREGULARITIES  OF  THE  WESTERN  MONKS.  109 


monk  was  handed  over  to  the  bishop  to  be  placed  in  a  monastery, 
from  which  if  he  escaped  again  he  was  delivered  to  the  secular 
tribunal  as  incorrigible.1  The  trouble  was  apparently  incurable. 
Three  hundred  and  fifty  years  later,  Leo  the  Philosopher  deplores  it, 
and  orders  all  recalcitrant  monks  to  be  returned  to  their  convents 
as  often  as  they  may  escape.  As  for  the  morals  of  monastic  life, 
it  may  be  sufficient  to  refer  to  the  regulation  of  St.  Theodore  Stu- 
dita,  in  the  ninth  century,  prohibiting  the  entrance  of  even  female 
animals.2 

Thus  gradually  the  irrevocable  nature  of  monastic  vows  became 
established  in  the  East,  more  from  reasons  of  state  than  from  eccle¬ 
siastical  considerations.  In  the  West,  matters  were  longer  in  reach¬ 
ing  a  settlement,  and  the  causes  operating  were  somewhat  different. 
Monachism  there  had  not  become  a  terror  to  the  civil  power,  and  its 
management  was  left  to  the  church ;  yet,  if  its  influence  was  insuf¬ 
ficient  to  excite  tumults  and  seditions,  it  was  none  the  less  disorgan¬ 
ized,  and  its  disorders  were  a  disgrace  to  those  on  whom  rested  the 
responsibility. 

The  Latin  church  was  not  by  any  means  insensible  to  this  disgrace, 
nor  did  it  underrate  the  importance  of  rendering  the  vows  indis¬ 
soluble,  of  binding  its  servants  absolutely  and  forever  to  its  service, 
and  of  maintaining  its  character  and  influence  by  endeavoring  to 
enforce  a  discipline  that  should  insure  purity.  During  the  period 
sketched  above,  and  for  the  two  following  centuries,  there  is  scarcely 
a  council  which  did  not  enact  canons  showing  at  once  the  persistent 
effort  to  produce  these  results  and  the  almost  insurmountable  diffi¬ 
culty  of  accomplishing  them.  It  would  lead  us  too  far  to  enter 
upon  the  minutiae  of  these  perpetually  reiterated  exhortations  and 
threats,  or  of  the  various  expedients  which  were  successively  tried. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  end  in  view  was  never  lost  sight  of,  while 
the  perseverance  of  the  wrongdoer  seems  to  have  rivalled  that  of  the 
disciplinarian.  The  anvil  bade  fair  to  wear  out  the  hammer,  while 
the  confusion  and  lawlessness  of  those  dismal  ages  gave  constantly 
increasing  facilities  to  those  who  desired  to  escape  from  the  strictness 
of  the  ascetic  life  to  which  they  had  devoted  themselves.  Thus  arose 
a  crowd  of  vagabond  monks,  gyrovagi ,  acevhali ,  circiltiones,  sara- 

1  Novell,  cxxm.  c.  42. 

2  S.  Theod.  Studit.  Testament,  v.  (Max.  Bib.  Pat.  IX.  i.  276)« 


110 


MONACHISM. 


baitoe ,  who,  without  acknowledging  obedience  to  any  superior,  or 
having  any  definite  place  of  abode,  wandered  over  the  face  of  the 
country,  claiming  the  respect  and  immunities  due  to  a  sacred  calling, 
for  the  purpose  of  indulging  in  an  idle  and  dissolute  life — vagrants 
of  the  worst  description,  according  to  the  unanimous  testimony  of 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  period.1 

Thus,  up  to  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  no  regular  system  of 
discipline  had  been  introduced  in  the  monastic  establishments  of  the 
Latin  church.  About  that  period  Cassianus,  the  first  abbot  of  St. 
Victor  of  Marseilles,  wrote  out,  for  the  benefit  of  the  ruder  monasti- 
cism  of  the  West,  the  details  of  discipline  in  which  he  had  perfected 
himself  among  the  renowned  communities  of  the  East.  He  deplores 
the  absence  of  any  fixed  rule  in  the  Latin  convents,  where  every 
abbot  governed  on  the  plan  which  suited  his  fancy ;  where  more 
difficulty  was  found  in  preserving  order  among  two  or  three  monks 
than  the  Abbot  of  Tabenna  in  the  Thebaid  experienced  with  the 
flock  of  five  thousand  committed  to  his  single  charge ;  and  where 
each  individual  retained  his  own  private  hoards,  which  were  carefully 
locked  up  and  sealed  to  keep  them  from  the  unscrupulous  covetous¬ 
ness  of  his  brethren.2  How  little  all  these  efforts  accomplished  is 
clearly  manifested  when,  in  494,  w^e  find  Gelasius  I.  lamenting  the 
incestuous  marriages  which  were  not  uncommon  among  the  virgins 
dedicated  to  God,  and  venturing  only  to  denounce  excommunication 
on  the  offenders,  unless  they  should  avert  it  by  undergoing  public 
penance.  As  for  widows  who  married  after  professing  chastity,  he 
could  indicate  no  earthly  chastisement,  but  only  held  out  to  them  the 
prospect  of  eternal  reward  or  punishment,  and  left  it  for  them  to 
decide  whether  they  would  seek  or  abandon  the  better  part.3  Still, 
the  irrevocable  nature  of  the  vow  of  celibacy  was  so  little  understood 
or  respected  that  in  502  Caesarius,  who  had  just  been  translated  from 


1  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia,  tne  leal 
founder  of  Latin  monaehism,  who  quit¬ 
ted  the  world  in  494,  thus  describes 
the  wandering  monks  of  his  time : 
“  Tertium  vero  monachorum  teterri- 
rnum  genus  est  Sarabaitarum  .  .  .  qui 
bini  aut  terni,  aut  certe  singuli  sine 
pastore,  non  Dominicis  sed  suis  inclusi 
ovilibus,  pro  lege  eis  est  desideriorum 
voluptas ;  cum  quidquid  putaverint 
vel  elegerint,  hoc  dicunt  sanctum,  et 
quod  noluerint  putant  non  licere. 
Quartum  vero  genus  est  monachorum 
quod  nominator  gvrovagum,  qui  tota 


vita  sua  per  diversas  provincias  ternis 
aut  quaternis  diebus  per  diversorum 
cellas  hospitantur,  semper  vagi  et  nun- 
quam  stabiles,  et  propriis  voluptatibus 
et  guise  illecebris  servientes,  et  per 
omnia  deteriores  Sarabaitis :  de  quo¬ 
rum  omnium  miserrima  conversatione 
melius  est  silere  quam  loqui.’’ — Regul. 
S.  Benedicti  c.  1. 

2  Cassiani  de  Coenob.  Instit.  Lib.  n. 
c.  3 ;  Lib.  v.  c.  1,  15. 

3  Gelasii  PP.  I.  Epist.  ix.  cap.  xx., 
xxi. 


ST.  BENEDICT. 


Ill 


the  abbacy  of  a  monastery  to  the  bishopric  of  Arles,  wrote  to  Pope 
Symmachus  asking  him  to  issue  a  precept  forbidding  marriage  to 
nuns,  to  which  the  pontiff  promptly  acceeded.1 

A  new  apostle  was  clearly  needed  to  aid  the  organizing  spirit  of 
Rome  in  her  efforts  to  regulate  the  increasing  number  of  devotees, 
who  threatened  to  become  the  worst  scandal  of  the  church,  and  who 
could  be  rendered  so  efficient  an  instrument  for  its  aggrandizement. 
He  was  found  in  the  person  of  St.  Benedict  of  Nursia,  who,  about 
the  year  494,  at  the  early  age  of  sixteen,  tore  himself  from  the 
pleasures  of  the  world,  and  buried  his  youth  in  the  solitudes  of  the 
Latian  Apennines.  A  nature  that  could  wrench  itself  away  from  the 
allurements  of  a  splendid  career  dawning  amid  the  blandishments  of 
Rome  was  not  likely  to  shrink  from  the  austerities  which  awe  and 
attract  the  credulous  and  the  devout.  Tempted  by  the  Evil  Spirit 
in  the  guise  of  a  beautiful  maiden,  and  finding  his  resolution  on  the 
point  of  yielding,  with  a  supreme  effort  Benedict  cast  oft'  his  simple 
garment  and  threw  himself  into  a  thicket  of  brambles  and  nettles, 
through  which  he  rolled  until  his  naked  body  was  lacerated  from 
head  to  foot.  The  experiment,  though  rude,  was  eminently  success¬ 
ful;  the  flesh  was  effectually  conquered,  and  Benedict  w~as  never 
again  tormented  by  rebellious  desires.2  A  light  so  shining  was  not 
created  for  obscurity.  Zealous  disciples  assembled  around  him, 
attracted  from  distant  regions  by  his  sanctity,  and  after  various 
vicissitudes  he  founded  the  monastery  of  Monte  Casino,  on  which 
for  a  thousand  years  were  lavished  all  that  veneration  and  munifi¬ 
cence  could  accumulate  to  render  illustrious  the  birthplace  and 
capital  of  the  great  Benedictine  Order. 


1  Symraachi  PP.  Epist.  vi. 

2  Greg.  Mag.  Vit.  S.  Benedicti  c.  2. 
— Juan  Cirita,  a  Spanish  saint  of  the 
twelfth  century,  was  exposed  to  the 
same  temptation  as  St.  Benedict,  the 
devil  visiting  him  in  the  shape  of  a 
lovely  woman  who  sought  refuge  from 
her  pursuers  in  his  cell.  During  a 
sleepless  night,  feeling  his  resolution 
giving  way,  he  roused  his  fire  and  with 
a  glowing  brand  burned  his  arm  to  the 
hone,  whereupon  the  devil  vanished, 
loading  him  with  reproaches  (Henri- 
quez  Vit.  Joannis  Cirita  cap.  ii.).  Le¬ 
gends  of  this  nature  are  not  uncom¬ 
mon,  nor  are  there  wanting  those  of 
another  class  in  which  the  immediate 


and  visible  agency  of  the  Evil  Spirit  is 
not  called  into  play.  Thus  the  holy 
Godric,  a  Welsh  saint  of  the  twelfth 
century,  endeavored  to  subdue  his 
rebellious  flesh  in  the  manner  which 
St.  Benedict  found  so  effectual,  but 
without  success.  He  then  buried  a 
cask  in  the  earthen  floor  of  his  cell, 
filled  it  with  water  and  fitted  it  with 
a  cover,  and  in  this  receptacle  he  shut 
himself  up  whenever  he  felt  the  titil- 
lations  of  desire.  In  this  manner,  va¬ 
ried  by  occasionally  passing  the  night 
up  to  his  chin  in  a  river  of  which  he 
had  broken  the  ice,  he  finally  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  mastering  his  fiery  nature. 
— Girald.  Cambrens.  Gemm.  Eccles. 
Dist.  ii.  c.  x. 


112 


MONACHISM. 


The  rule  promulgated  by  Benedict,  which  virtually  became  the 
established  law  of  Latin  Monachism,  shows  the  more  practical  char¬ 
acter  of  the  western  mind.  Though  pervaded  by  the  austerest 
asceticism,  yet  labor,  charity,  and  good  works  occupy  a  much  more 
prominent  place  in  its  injunctions  than  in  the  system  of  the  East. 
Salvation  was  not  to  be  sought  simply  by  abstinence  and  mortifica¬ 
tion,  and  the  innate  selfishness  of  the  monastic  principle  was  relaxed 
in  favor  of  a  broader  and  more  human  view  of  the  duties  of  man  to 
his  Creator  and  to  his  fellows.  This  gave  to  the  institution  a  firmer 
hold  on  the  affections  of  mankind  and  a  more  enduring  vitality, 
which  preserved  its  fortunes  through  the  centuries,  in  spite  of  innu¬ 
merable  aberrations  and  frightful  abuses. 

Still  there  were  as  yet  no  irrevocable  vows  of  poverty,  chastity, 
and  obedience  exacted  of  the  novice.  After  a  year  of  probation  he 
promised,  before  God  and  the  Saints,  to  keep  the  Rule  under  pain 
of  damnation,  and  he  was  then  admitted  with  imposing  religious 
ceremonies.  His  worldly  garments  were,  however,  preserved,  to  be 
returned  to  him  in  case  of  expulsion,  to  which  he  was  liable  if  incor¬ 
rigibly  disobedient.  If  he  left  the  monastery,  or  if  he  was  ejected, 
he  could  return  twice,  but  after  the  third  admission,  if  he  again 
abandoned  the  order,  he  was  no  longer  eligible.1  Voluntary  submis¬ 
sion  was  thus  the  corner-stone  of  discipline,  and  there  was  nothing 
indelible  in  the  engagement  which  bound  the  monk  to  his  brethren. 

Contemporary  with  St.  Benedict  was  St.  Csesarius  of  Arles,  whose 
Rule  has  been  transmitted  to  us  by  his  nephew,  St.  Tetradius.  It 
is  very  short,  but  is  more  rigid  than  that  of  Benedict,  inasmuch  as 
it  requires  from  the  applicant  the  condition  of  remaining  for  life  in 
the  convent,  nor  will  it  permit  his  assumption  of  the  habit  until  he 
shall  have  executed  a  deed  bestowing  all  his  property  either  on  his 
relatives  or  on  the  establishment  of  his  choice,  thus  insuring  the 
rule  of  poverty,  and  depriving  him  of  all  inducement  to  retire.2 

The  Rule  of  St.  Benedict,  however,  overcame  all  rivalry,  and  was 
at  length  universally  adopted;  Charlemagne,  indeed,  inquired  in  811 
whether  there  could  be  any  monks  except  those  who  professed  obedi¬ 
ence  to  it.3  Under  it  were  founded  the  innumerable  monasteries 


1  Itegul.  S.  Benedicti  c.  58,  28,  29. 

2  Tetrad.  Regul.  c.  1. 

3  Capit.  Car.  Mag.  I.  aim.  811  cap. 
xi.  He  also  asks  whether  there  were 
any  monks  in  Gaul  before  the  rule  of 


St.  Benedict  was  brought  there,  and  is 
naturally  not  a  little  puzzled  when  told 
that  St.  Martin  of  Tours  was  a  monk 
long  anterior  to  the  time  of  Benedict. 
— Capit.  II.  ann.  811  cap.  xii.  (Baluz. 
I.  381-2,  Ed.  Venet.). 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT. 


113 


which  sprang  up  in  every  part  of  Europe,  and  "were  everywhere  the 
pioneers  of  civilization ;  which  exercised  a  more  potent  influence  in 
extending  Christianity  over  the  Heathen  than  all  other  agencies 
combined ;  which  carried  the  useful  arts  into  barbarous  regions,  and 
preserved  to  modern  times  whatever  of  classic  culture  has  remained 
to  us.  If  they  were  equally  efficient  in  extending  the  authority  of 
the  Roman  curia,  and  in  breaking  down  the  independence  of  local 
and  national  churches,  it  is  not  to  be  rashly  assumed  that  even  that 
result  was  a  misfortune,  when  the  anarchical  tendencies  of  the  Middle 
Ages  were  to  be  neutralized  principally  by  the  humanizing  force  of 
religion,  and  consolidation  was  requisite  to  carry  the  church  through 
the  wilderness.  Until  the  thirteenth  century  the  Benedictines  were 
practically  without  rivals,  and  their  numbers  and  holiness  may  be 

fifteenth  century  one  of  their  his¬ 
torians  computed  that  the  order  had  furnished  fifty-five  thousand  five 
hundred  and  five  blessed  members  to  the  calendar  of  saints.1 

Yet  it  could  not  but  be  a  scandal  to  all  devout  minds  that  a  man 
who  had  once  devoted  himself  to  religious  observances  should  return 
to  the  world.  Not  only  did  it  tend  to  break  down  the  important  dis¬ 
tinction  now  rapidly  developing  itself  between  the  clergy  and  the 
laity,  but  the  possibility  of  such  escape  interfered  with  the  control  of 
the  church  over  those  who  formed  so  large  a  class  of  its  members,  and 
diminished  their  utility  in  aiding  the  progress  of  its  aggrandizement. 
We  cannot  be  surprised,  therefore,  that  within  half  a  century  after 
the  death  of  St.  Benedict,  among  the  reforms  energetically  inaugu¬ 
rated  by  St.  Gregory  the  Great,  in  the  first  year  of  his  pontificate, 
was  that  of  commanding  the  forcible  return  of  all  who  abandoned 
their  profession — the  terms  of  the  decretal  showing  that  no  conceal¬ 
ment  had  been  thought  necessary  by  the  renegades  in  leading  a 
secular  life  and  in  publicly  marrying.2  Equally  determined  were  his 


estimated  by  the  fact  that  in  the 


1  Quinquaginta  quinque  millia  quingenta 

quinque 

Omnes  canonizati  a  te  sunt  translati. 
Est  monachus  sanctus.  Caput  vero 
Benedictus. — 

(Birck  de  Monast.  Campido- 
nens.  c.  25.) 

Bishop  Trithemius  is  more  moderate, 
his  estimate  amounting  to  only  15,559. 
(Mirsei  Orig.  Benedict.) 

2  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  i.  Epist.  42. 
Six  years  later  he  had  to  repeat  his 
commands  in  stronger  terms.  (Of.  Lib. 
vn.  Epist.  35.  Lib.  n.  Epist.  28. 
Lib.  iv.  Epist.  27.  Lib.  x.  Epist.  8.) 


Yet  when  the  offender  was  a  man  of 
rank  and  power,  as  in  the  case  of 
Yenantius,  Patrician  of  Syracuse,  Greg¬ 
ory  could  lay  aside  the  tone  of  lofty 
command  and  condescend  to  tender  en¬ 
treaty  and  earnest  exhortation  (Lib.  i. 
Epist.  34),  without  even  a  threat  of  ex- 
communication,  and  remain  for  years 
on  the  friendliest  terms  with  him  (Lib. 
xi.  Epistt.  30,  35,  36),  showing  that  the 
rule  was  as  yet  by  no  means  firmly  es¬ 
tablished.  In  another  case,  however, 
nothing  can  be  more  indignant  and 
peremptory  than  his  commands  (Lib. 
viii.  Epistt.  8,  9). 


114 


MONACHISM. 


efforts  to  reform  the  abuses  which  had  so  relaxed  the  discipline  of 
some  monasteries  that  women  were  allowed  perfect  freedom  of  access, 
and  the  monks  contracted  such  intimacy  with  them  that  they  openly 
acted  as  godfathers  to  their  children  ;l  and  when,  in  601,  he  learned 
that  the  monks  of  St.  Yitus,  on  Mount  Etna,  considered  themselves 
at  liberty  to  marry,  apparently  without  leaving  their  convent,  he 
checked  the  abuse  by  the  most  prompt  and  decided  commands  to  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  of  Sicily.2 

By  the  efforts  of  Gregory  the  monk  was  thus,  in  theory  at  least, 
separated  irrevocably  from  the  world,  and  committed  to  an  existence 
which  depended  solely  upon  the  church.  Cut  off  from  family  and 
friends,  the  door  closed  behind  him  forever,  and  his  only  aspirations, 
beyond  his  owm  personal  wants  and  hopes,  could  but  be  for  his  abbey, 
his  order,  or  the  church,  with  which  he  was  thus  indissolubly  con¬ 
nected.  There  was  one  exception,  however,  to  this  general  rule. 
No  married  man  was  allowed  to  become  a  monk  unless  his  wife 
assented,  and  likewise  became  a  nun.  The  marriage-tie  was  too 
sacred  to  be  broken,  unless  both  parties  agreed  simultaneously  to 
embrace  the  better  life.  Thus,  on  the  complaint  of  a  wife,  Gregory 
orders  her  husband  to  be  forcibly  removed  from  the  monastery  which 
he  had  entered  and  to  be  restored  to  her.  We  shall  see  hereafter 
how'  entirely  the  church  in  time  outgrew  these  scruples,  and  how  in¬ 
significant  the  sacrament  of  marriage  became  in  comparison  with  that 
of  ordination  or  the  vow  of  religion.3 

The  theory  of  perpetual  segregation  from  the  world  was  thus  es¬ 
tablished,  and  it  accomplished  at  last  the  objects  for  which  it  was 
designed,  but  it  was  too  much  in  opposition  to  the  invincible  tendencies 
of  human  nature  to  be  universally  enforced  without  a  struggle  which 
lasted  for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  To  follow  out  in  detail  the 
vicissitudes  of  this  struggle  would  require  too  much  space.  Its 
nature  will  be  indicated  by  occasional  references  in  the  following 
pages,  and  meanwhile  it  will  be  sufficient  to  observe  how  little  was  ac¬ 
complished  even  in  his  own  age  by  the  energy  and  authority  of 
Gregory.  It  was  only  a  few  years  after  his  death  that  the  council  of 
Paris,  in  615,  proves  to  us  that  residence  in  monasteries  was  not  con- 


1  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  iv.  Epist.  42. 

2  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  x.  Epistt.  22, 
23  — He  states  “  ut  etiam  monachis 

ibidem  degentibus  mulieribus  se  jungere 


sine  metu  sit  licituni  ”  which  he  char¬ 
acterizes  as  “  res  .  .  omnino  detesta- 
bilis  et  nefanda.” 


3  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  xi.  Epist.  50. 


IRREGULARITIES  OF  THE  SYSTEM. 


115 


sidered  necessary  for  women  who  took  the  vows,  and  that  the  civil 
power  had  to  he  invoked  to  prevent  their  marriage.1  Indeed,  it  was 
not  uncommon  for  men  to  turn  their  houses,  nominally  at  least,  into 
convents,  living  there  surrounded  with  their  wives  and  families,  and 
deriving  no  little  worldly  profit  from  the  assumption  of  superior  piety, 
to  the  scandal  of  the  truly  religious.2  St.  Isidor  of  Seville,  about 
the  same  period,  copies  the  words  of  St.  Augustin  in  describing  the 
wandering  monastic  impostors  who  lived  upon  the  credulous  charity 
of  the  faithful  ;3  and  he  also  enlarges  upon  the  disgraceful  license  of 
the  acephali ,  or  clerks  bound  by  no  rule,  whose  vagabond  life  and 
countless  numbers  were  an  infamy  to  the  western  kingdoms  which 
they  infested.4  The  quotation  of  this  passage  by  Louis-le-Debon- 
naire,  in  his  attempt  to  reform  the  church,  shows  that  these  degraded 
vagrants  continued  to  flourish  unchecked  in  the  ninth  century  ;5  and, 
indeed,  Smaragdus,  in  his  Commentary  on  the  Rule  of  St.  Benedict, 
assures  us  that  the  evil  had  rather  increased  than  diminished.6 


Monachism  was  but  one  application  of  the  doctrine  of  justification 
by  works,  which,  by  the  enthusiasm  and  superstition  of  ages,  was 
gradually  built  into  a  vast  system  of  sacerdotalism.  Through  it 
were  eventually  opened  to  the  mediaeval  church  sources  of  illimitable 
power  and  wealth  by  means  of  the  complicated  machinery  of  purga¬ 
tory,  masses  for  the  dead,  penances,  indulgences,  &c.,  under  the  sole 
control  of  the  central  head,  to  which  were  committed  the  power  of 
the  keys  and  the  dispensation  of  the  exhaustless  treasure  of  salvation 
bestowed  on  the  church  by  the  Redeemer  and  perpetually  increased 
by  the  merits  of  the  saints.  To  discuss  these  collateral  themes, 


1  Concil.  Parisiens.  V.  arm.  615  c. 
xiii. — In  the  decree  of  Clotair  II.,  con¬ 
firming  the  acts  of  this  council,  we 
find — “  Puellas  et  viduas  religiosas,  aut 
sanctimoniales,  quae  se  Deo  voverunt, 
tam  quae  in  propriis  domibus  resident, 
quam  quae  in  monasteriis  positae  sunt, 
nullus  nec  per  praeceptum  nostrum 
competat,  nec  trahere  nec  sibi  in  con- 
jugio  sociare  penitus  praesumat  etc.” — 
Edict.  Chlot.  II.  ann.  615  c.  xviii. 
(Baluze). 

2  S.  Fructuosi  Bracarens.  Regul. 
Commun.  cap.  1. 

3  De  Ecclesiast.  Offic.  Lib.  ii.  cap. 
xvi.  §  7. 


4  Solutos  atque  oberrantes,  sola  tur- 
pis  vita  complectitur  et  vaga,  .  .  . 
quique  dum,  nullum  metuentes,  ex- 
plendae  voluptatis  suae  licentiam  con- 
sectantur,  quasi  animalia  bruta,  liber- 
tate  ac  desiderio  suo  feruntur,  habentes 
signum  religionis,  non  religionis  offi- 
cium,  hippocentauris  similes,  neque 
equi  neque  homines,  .  .  .  quorum 
quidem  sordida  atque  infami  numerosi- 
tate  satis  superque  nostra  pars  occidua 
pollet. — Ibid.  Lib.  ii.  c.  iii. 

5  Ludov.  Pii  de  Reform.  Eccles.  cap. 
100.  (Goldast.  Const.  Imp.  III.  199.) 

6  Smaragd.  Comment,  in  Regul. 
Benedict,  c.  1. 


116 


MON  ACHISM . 


however,  would  carry  us  too  far  from  our  subject,  and  I  must  dismiss 
them  with  the  remark  that  at  the  period  now  under  consideration 
there  could  have  been  no  anticipation  of  these  ulterior  advantages 
to  be  gained  by  assuming  to  regulate  the  mode  in  which  individual 
piety  might  seek  to  propitiate  an  offended  God.  Sufficient  motives 
for  the  assumption  existed  in  the  evils  and  aspirations  of  the  moment 
without  anticipating  others  which  only  received  their  fullest  develop¬ 
ment  under  the  skilful  logic  of  the  Thomists. 


VIII. 

THE  BARBARIANS. 


While  the  Latin  church  had  thus  been  engaged  in  its  hopeless 
combat  with  the  incurable  vices  of  a  worn-out  civilization,  it  had 
found  itself  confronted  by  a  new  and  essentially  different  task.  The 
Barbarians  who  wrenched  province  after  province  from  the  feeble 
grasp  of  the  Caesars  had  to  be  conquered,  or  religion  and  culture 
would  be  involved  in  the  wreck  which  blotted  out  the  political  sys¬ 
tem  of  the  Empire.  The  destinies  of  the  future  hung  trembling  in 
the  balance,  and  it  might  not  be  an  uninteresting  speculation  to  con¬ 
sider  what  had  been  the  present  condition  of  the  world  if  Western 
Europe  had  shared  the  fate  of  the  East,  and  had  fallen  under  the 
domination  of  a  race  bigoted  in  its  own  belief  and  incapable  of 
learning  from  its  subjects.  Fortunately  for  mankind,  the  invaders 
of  the  West  were  not  semi-civilized  and  self-satisfied ;  their  belief 
was  not  a  burning  zeal  for  a  faith  sufficiently  elevated  to  meet  many 
of  the  wants  of  the  soul ;  they  were  simple  barbarians,  who,  while 
they  might  despise  the  cowardly  voluptuaries  on  whom  they  trampled, 
could  not  fail  to  recognize  the  superiority  of  a  civilization  awful 
even  in  its  ruins.  Fortunately,  too,  the  Latin  church  was  a  more 
compact  and  independently  organized  body  than  its  Eastern  rival, 
inspired  by  a  warmer  faith  and  a  more  resolute  ambition.  It  faced 
the  difficulties  of  its  new  position  with  consummate  tact  and  tireless 
energy ;  and  whether  its  adversaries  were  Pagans  like  the  Franks,  or 
Arians  like  the  Goths  and  Burgundians,  by  alternate  pious  zeal  and 
artful  energy  it  triumphed  where  success  seemed  hopeless,  and  where 
bare  toleration  would  have  appeared  a  sufficient  victory. 

While  the  celibacy,  which  bound  every  ecclesiastic  to  the  church 
and  dissevered  all  other  ties,  may  doubtless  be  credited  with  a  leading 
share  in  this  result,  it  introduced  new  elements  of  disorder  where 
enough  existed  before.  The  chaste  purity  of  the  Barbarians  at  their 


118 


THE  BARBARIANS. 


advent  aroused  the  wondering  admiration  of  Salvianus,  as  that  of 
their  fathers  four  centuries  earlier  had  won  the  severe  encomium  of 
Tacitus;1  but  the  virtue  which  sufficed  for  the  simplicity  of  the 
German  forests  was  not  long  proof  against  the  allurements  accumu¬ 
lated  by  the  cynicism  of  Roman  luxury.  At  first  the  wild  converts, 
content  with  the  battle-axe  and  javelin,  might  leave  the  holy  functions 
of  religion  to  their  new  subjects,  their  strength  scarcely  feeling  the 
restraint  of  a  faith  which  to  them  was  little  more  than  an  idle  cere¬ 
mony;  but  as  they  gradually  settled  down  in  their  conquests,  and 
recognized  that  the  high  places  of  the  church  conferred  riches,  honor, 
and  power,  they  coveted  the  prizes  which  were  too  valuable  to  be 
monopolized  by  an  inferior  race.  Gradually  the  hierarchy  thus  be¬ 
came  filled  with  a  class  of  warrior  bishops,  who,  however  efficient  in 
maintaining  and  extending  ecclesiastical  prerogatives,  were  not  likely 
to  shed  lustre  on  their  order  by  the  rigidity  of  their  virtue,  or  to 
remove,  by  a  strict  enforcement  of  discipline,  the  scandals  inseparable 
from  endless  civil  commotions. 


Reference  has  been  made  above  (p.  80),  to  the  perpetual  iteration 
of  the  canon  of  celibacy,  and  of  the  ingenious  devices  to  prevent  its 
violation,  by  the  numerous  councils  held  during  this  period,  showing 
at  once  the  disorders  which  prevailed  among  the  clergy  and  the 
fruitlessness  of  the  effort  to  repress  them.  The  history  of  the  time 
is  full  of  examples  illustrating  the  various  phases  of  this  struggle. 

The  episcopal  chair,  which  at  an  earlier  period  had  been  filled  by 
the  votes  of  the  people,  and  which  subsequently  came  under  the 
control  of  the  Papacy,  was  at  this  time  a  gift  in  the  hands  of  the 
untamed  Merovingians,  who  carelessly  bestowed  it  on  him  who  could 
most  lavishly  fill  the  royal  coffers,  or  who  had  earned  it  by  courtly 
subservience  or  warlike  prowess.  The  supple  Roman  or  the  turbu¬ 
lent  Frank,  who  perchance  could  not  recite  a  line  of  the  Mass,  thus 
leaped  at  once  from  the  laity  through  all  the  grades  ;2  and  as  he  was 


1  De  Mor.  German,  c.  18,  19.  It  is  Rhodez  at  the  solicitation  of  his  wife 
a  little  singular  that  Salvianus  names  and  sister  (Hist.  Franc.  Lib.  ill.  c.  2), 
the  Alamanni  as  the  only  exception  to  '  and  shortly  afterwards  the  same  episco- 
the  character  for  chastity  which  he  be-  pate  is  tilled  by  the  appointment  of 
stows  on  the  Barbarians  in  general.  “  Innocentius  Gabalitanorum  comes” 

(Ibid.  Lib.  vi.  c.  38).  Sulpitius,  when 

2  From  such  chance  allusions  as  are  nominated  to  that  of  Bourges,  “ad 
made  by  Gregory  of  Tours,  this  would  clericatum  deductus,  episcopatum  .  .  . 
almost  seem  to  be  the  general  rule,  and  suscepit”  (Ibid.  Lib.  vi.  c.  39).  Bade- 
not  the  exception.  Thus  he  mentions  gisilus,  Clotair’s  mayor  of  the  palace, 
that  Apollinaris  obtained  the  see  of  received  the  bishopric  of  Le  Mans  “  qui 


MEROVINGIAN  FRANCE. 


119 


most  probably  married,  there  can  be  no  room  for  surprise  if  the  rule 
of  continence,  thus  suddenly  assumed  from  the  most  worldly  motives, 
should  often  prove  unendurable.  Even  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Frankish  conquest  we  see  a  cultured  noble,  like  Genebaldus,  married 
to  the  niece  of  St.  Remy,  when  placed  in  the  see  of  Laon  ostensibly 
putting  his  wife  away  and  visiting  her  only  under  pretext  of  religious 
instruction,  until  the  successive  births  of  a  son  and  a  daughter — 
whom  he  named  Latro  and  Yulpecula  in  token  of  his  sin — and  we 
may  not  unreasonably  doubt  the  chronicler’s  veracity  when  he  informs 
us  that  the  remorse  of  Genebaldus  led  him  to  submit  to  seven  years’ 
imprisonment  as  an  expiatory  penance.1  Equally  instructive  is  the 
story  of  Felix  of  Nantes,  whose  wife,  banished  from  his  bed  on  his 
elevation  to  the  episcopate,  rebelled  against  the  separation,  and,  find¬ 
ing  him  obdurate  to  her  allurements,  was  filled  with  jealousy,  believ¬ 
ing  that  only  another  attachment  could  account  for  his  coldness. 
Hoping  to  detect  and  expose  his  infidelity,  she  stole  into  the  chamber 
where  he  was  sleeping  and  saw  on  his  breast  a  lamb,  shining  with 
heavenly  light,  indicative  of  the  peaceful  repose  which  had  replaced 
all  earthly  passions  in  his  heart.2  A  virtue  which  was  regarded  as 
worthy  of  so  miraculous  a  manifestation  must  have  been  rare  indeed 
among  the  illiterate  and  untutored  nominees  of  a  licentious  court, 
and  that  it  was  so  in  fact  is  indicated  by  the  frequent  injunctions  of 
the  councils  that  bishops  must  regard  their  wives  as  sisters ;  while  a 
canon  promulgated  by  the  council  of  Macon,  in  581,  ordering  that 
no  woman  should  enter  the  chamber  of  a  bishop  without  two  priests, 
or  at  least  two  deacons,  in  her  company,  shows  how  little  hesitation 
there  was  in  publishing  to  the  world  the  suspicions  that  were  generally 
entertained.3  How  the  rule  was  sometimes  obeyed  by  the  wild 
prelates  of  the  age,  while  trampling  upon  other  equally  well-known 
canons,  is  exemplified  by  the  story  of  Macliaus  of  Britanny.  Chanao, 
Count  of  Britanny,  had  made  way  with  three  of  his  brothers;  the 
fourth,  Macliaus,  after  an  unsuccessful  conspiracy,  sought  safety  in 
flight,  entered  the  church,  and  was  created  Bishop  of  Yannes.  On 
the  death  of  Chanao,  he  promptly  seized  the  vacant  throne,  left  the 
church,  threw  off  his  episcopal  robes,  and  took  back  to  himself  the 


tonsuratus,  gradus  quos  clerici  sortiun- 
tur  ascensus,”  was  duly  installed  (Ibid. 
Lib.  vi.  c.  9).  Indeed,  in  his  catalogue 
of  the  Bishops  of  Tours,  Gregory  spec¬ 
ifies  of  Euphronius,  the  eighteenth 
bishop,  that  he  was  “ab  ineunte  getate 


clericus,”  showdng  how  unusual  it  was 
to  be  regularly  bred  to  the  church. 

1  Hincmari  Vit.  S.  Remigii  c.  42,  43. 

2  Greg.  Turon.  de  Glor.  Confess,  c.  78 

3  Concil.  Matiscon.  I.  c.  3. 


120 


THE  BARBARIANS. 


wife  whom  he  had  quitted  on  obtaining  the  see  of  Vannes — for  all 
of  which  he  was  duly  excommunicated  by  his  brother  prelates.1 

When  such  was  the  condition  of  morals  and  discipline  in  the  high 
places  of  the  church,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  second  council 
of  Tours,  in  567,  could  declare  that  the  people  suspect,  not  indeed 
all,  but  many  of  the  arch-priests,  vicars,  deacons,  and  subdeacons,  of 
maintaining  improper  relations  with  their  wives,  and  should  com¬ 
mand  that  no  one  in  orders  should  visit  his  own  house  except  in 
company  with  a  subordinate  clerk,  without  whom,  moreover,  he  was 
never  to  sleep;  the  clerk  refusing  the  performance  of  the  duty  to  be 
whipped,  and  the  priest  neglecting  the  precaution  to  be  deprived  of 
communion  for  thirty  days.  Any  one  in  orders  found  with  his  wife 
was  to  be  excommunicated  for  a  year,  deposed,  and  relegated  among 
the  laity;  while  the  arch-priest  who  neglected  the  enforcement  of 
these  rules  was  to  be  imprisoned  on  bread  and  water  for  a  month. 
An  equally  suggestive  illustration  of  the  condition  of  society  is 
afforded  by  another  canon,  directed  against  the  frequent  marriages  of 
nuns,  who  excused  themselves  on  the  ground  that  they  had  taken  the 
veil  to  avoid  the  risk  of  forcible  abduction.  Allusion  is  made  to  the 
laws  of  Childebert  and  Clotair,  maintained  in  vigor  by  Charibert, 
punishing  such  attempts  severely,  and  girls  who  anticipate  them  are 
directed  to  seek  temporary  asylum  in  the  church  until  their  kindred 
can  protect  them  under  the  royal  authority,  or  find  husbands  for  them.2 

Morals  were  even  worse  among  the  Arian  Wisigoths  of  Spain  than 
among  the  orthodox  believers  of  France.  It  is  true  that  priestly 
marriage  formed  no  part  of  the  Arian  doctrines,  but  as  the  heresy 
originated  prior  to  the  council  of  Nicaea,  and  professed  no  obedience  to 
that  or  any  other  council  or  decretal,  its  practice  in  this  respect  was 
left  to  such  influence  as  individual  asceticism  might  exercise.  Having 
no  acknowledged  head  to  promulgate  general  canons  or  to  insist  upon 
their  observance,  no  rule  of  the  kind,  even  if  theoretically  admitted, 
could  be  effectually  enforced.  How  little,  indeed,  the  rule  was 
obeyed  is  shown  by  the  proceedings  of  the  third  council  of  Toledo, 

1  Greg.  Turon.  Hist.  Franc.  Lib.  iv.  Franc.  Lib.  vm.  cap  19)  has  been  as- 

c.  4.  At  this  period  the  church  of  Bri-  sumed  to  indicate  that  priests  could 
tanny  was  rather  British  than  Frankish,  legitimately  have  commerce  with  their 
See  Haddan  &  Stubbs,  II.  72  sqq.  wives.  By  comparing  it  with  the 

canons  cited  above,  however,  it  evi- 

2  Concil.  Turon.  II.  c.  19,  20. — A  dently  can  at  the  most  have  reference 
remark  of  Gregory  of  Tours  (Hist,  to  the  lower  orders  of  the  clergy. 


SPAIN. 


121 


held  in  589  to  confirm  the  reunion  of  the  Spanish  kingdom  with  the 
orthodox  church.  It  complains  that  even  the  converted  bishops, 
priests,  and  deacons  are  found  to  be  publicly  living  with  their  wives, 
which  it  forbids  for  the  future  under  threat  of  degrading  all  recalci¬ 
trants  to  the  rank  of  lector.1  The  conversion  of  the  kingdom  to 
Catholicism  did  not  improve  matters.  The  clergy  continued  not  only 
to  associate  with  their  wives,  but  also  to  marry  openly,  for  the  secular 
power  was  soon  afterwards  forced  to  interfere,  and  King  Recared  I. 
issued  a  law  directing  that  any  priest,  deacon,  or  subdeacon  connect¬ 
ing  himself  with  a  woman  by  marriage  or  otherwise,  should  be  sepa¬ 
rated  from  his  guilty  consort  by  either  the  bishop  or  judge,  and  be 
punished  according  to  the  canons  of  the  church,  while  the  unfortunate 
woman  was  subjected  to  a  hundred  lashes  and  denied  all  access  to 
her  husband.  To  insure  the  enforcement  of  the  edict,  the  heavy  mulct 
of  two  pounds  of  gold  was  levied  on  any  bishop  neglecting  his  duty 
in  the  premises.2  Recared  also  interposed  to  put  a  stop  to  the  fre¬ 
quent  marriages  of  nuns,  whose  separation  from  their  husbands  and 
condign  punishment  were  decreed,  with  the  enormous  fine  of  five 
pounds  of  gold  exacted  of  the  careless  ecclesiastic  who  might  neglect 
to  carry  the  law  into  effect — a  fair  measure  of  the  difficulties  experi¬ 
enced  in  enforcing  the  rule  of  celibacy.3  This  legislation  had  little 
effect,  for  a  half  century  later  the  eighth  council  of  Toledo,  in  658,' 
shows  us  that  all  ranks  of  the  clergy,  from  bishops  to  subdeacons, 
had  still  no  scruple  in  publicly  maintaining  relations  with  wives  and 
concubines  ;4  and,  despite  these  well-meant  efforts,  clerical  morals 
went  from  bad  to  worse  until  the  licentious  reign  of  King  Witiza 
broke  down  all  the  accustomed  barriers.  According  to  the  monkish 
chroniclers,  that  reckless  prince  issued,  in  706,  a  law  authorizing  not 
only  polygamy  but  unlimited  concubinage  to  both  laity  and  clergy ; 
a  privilege  of  which  it  is  not  unreasonable,  from  what  we  have  seen, 
to  suppose  that  they  largely  availed  themselves.5  There  seems  to  be 
no  record  of  any  remonstrance  on  the  part  of  the  Gothic  prelates, 
and  when,  three  years  later,  Pope  Constantine  took  cognizance  of  the 


1  Concil.  Toletan.  III.  c.  5. 

2  L.  Wisigoth.  Lib.  hi.  Tit.  iv.  1.  18. 
This  law  is  preserved  in  the  Fuero 
Juzgo,  or  mediaeval  Romance  version  of 
the  code  (Lib.  in.  Tit.  iv.  ley  18). 

3  L.  Wisigoth.  Lib.  in.  Tit.  v.  1.  2. 

4  Concil.  Toletan  VIII.  ann.  653 

can  iv.  v.  vi. — These  measures  were  as  ! 


fruitless  as  the  preceding.  Cf.  Concil. 
Toletan.  IX.  ann.  655  can.  x. 

5  Rex  Witiza  se  effrenate  praecipitans 
per  omne  genus  flagitii,  legem  nequis- 
simam  tulit ;  ut  more  sara(ce)norum 
cuilibet  laico  et  clerico  liceret,  quotquot 
posset  alere,  uxores  et  concubinas  im- 
pune  domi  suae  retinere. — Liutprandi 
Chron.  No.  174  ann.  706. 


t 


122  THE  BARBARIANS. 

innovation,  and  threatened  Witiza  with  dethronement  if  he  should 
not  abrogate  his  iniquitous  legislation,  the  monarch  retorted  with  a 
promise  to  repeat  the  exploits  of  his  predecessor  Alaric,  in  sacking 
and  plundering  the  Apostolic  city.  It  is  a  little  singular,  however, 
that  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  usurper,  Don  Roderic,  in  711,  was 
the  repeal  of  this  obnoxious  law.1  If  he  had  any  intentions  of 
undertaking  the  reform  of  his  subjects’  morals,  however,  his  adventure 
with  Count  Julian’s  daughter  and  the  Saracenic  invasion  caused  its 
indefinite  postponement. 

Italy  was  almost  equally  far  removed  from  the  ideal  purity  of 
Jerome  and  Augustin.  In  the  early  part  of  the  sixth  century  was 
fabricated  an  account  of  a  supposititious  council,  said  to  have  been 
held  in  Rome  by  Silvester  I.,  and  the  neglect  of  celibacy  is  evident 
when  it  was  felt  to  be  necessary  to  insert  in  this  forgery  a  canon 
forbidding  marriage  to  priests,  under  penalty  of  deprivation  of  func¬ 
tions  for  ten  years.2  Even  in  this  it  is  observable  that  there  was  no 
thought  of  annulling  the  marriage,  as  subsequently  became  established 
in  orthodox  doctrines.  Nothing  can  be  more  suggestive  of  the 
demoralization  of  the  Italian  church  than  the  permission  granted 
about  the  year  580  by  Pelagius  II.  for  the  elevation  to  the  diaconate 
of  a  clerk  at  Florence,  who  while  a  widower  had  had  children  by  a 
concubine.  What  renders  the  circumstance  peculiarly  significant  is 
the  fact  that  the  Pope  pleads  the  degeneracy  of  the  age  as  his  apology 
for  this  laxity.3 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Christian  world  when  Gregory  the 
Great,  in  590,  ascended  the  pontifical  throne.  He  was  too  devout  a 
churchman  and  too  sagacious  a  statesman  not  to  appreciate  thoroughly 
the  importance  of  the  canon  in  all  its  various  aspects — not  only  as 
necessary  to  ecclesiastical  purity  according  to  the  ideas  of  the  age, 
but  also  as-  a  prime  element  in  the  influence  of  the  church  over  the 
minds  of  the  people,  as  well  as  an  essential  aid  in  extending  ecclesi¬ 
astical  power,  and  in  retaining  undiminislied  the  enormous  possessions 
acquired  by  the  church  through  the  munificence  of  the  pious.  The 


1  Liutprandi  Chron.  No.  181  ann. 
709;  No.  188  ann.  711.  Without  enter¬ 
ing  into  the  question  of  the  correctness 
with  which  this  chronicle  Inis  been 
attributed  to  Liutprand  of  Cremona, 
I  may  say  that  it  has  every  appearance 
of  bein<;  an  authentic  remnant  of  an¬ 


tiquity  (Cf.  Antonii  Biblioth.  Hispan. 
I.  585). 

2  Concil.  Roman,  sub  Silvest.  can. 
xix.  (Migne’s  Patrol.  VIII.  840). 

3  Pelagii  PP.  II.  Epist.  xiv. 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT. 


123 


prevailing  laxity,  indeed,  was  already  threatening  serious  dilapidation 
of  the  ecclesiastical  estates  and  foundations.  How  clearly  this  was 
understood  is  shown  by  Pelagius  I.  in  557,  when  he  refused  for  a 
year  to  permit  the  consecration  of  a  bishop  elected  by  the  Syracusans. 
On  their  persisting  in  their  choice  he  wrote  to  the  Patrician  Cethegus, 
giving  as  the  reason  for  his  opposition  the  prelate’s  wife  and  children, 
by  whom,  if  they  survive,  the  substance  of  the  church  is  wont  to  be 
jeopardized;1  and  his  consent  was  finally  given  only  on  the  condition 
that  the  bishop  elect  should  provide  competent  security  against  any 
conversion  of  the  estate  of  the  diocese  for  the  benefit  of  his  family, 
a  detailed  statement  of  the  property  being  made  out  in  advance  to 
guard  against  attempted  infractions  of  the  agreement.  That  this 
was  not  a  merely  local  abuse  is  evident  from  a  law  of  the  Wisigoths, 
which  provides  that  on  the  accession  of  any  bishop,  priest,  or  deacon, 
an  accurate  inventory  of  all  church  possessions  under  his  control 
shall  be  made  by  five  freemen,  and  that  after  his  death  an  inquest 
shall  be  held  for  the  purpose  of  making  good  any  deficiencies  out  of 
the  estate  of  the  decedent,  and  forcing  the  restoration  of  anything 
that  might  have  been  alienated.2 

There  evidently  was  ample  motive  for  a  thorough  reformation, 
and  Gregory  accordingly  addressed  himself  energetically  to  the 
work  of  enforcing  the  canons.  In  his  decretals  there  are  numerous 
references  to  the  subject,  showing  that  he  lost  no  opportunity  of 
reviving  the  neglected  rules  of  discipline  regarding  the  ordination  of 
digami,3  the  residence  of  women,  and  abstinence  from  all  intercourse 
with  the  sex.4  In  his  zeal  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  decree  that  any 
one  guilty  of  even  a  single  lapse  from  virtue  should  be  forever 
debarred  from  the  ministry  of  the  altar5 — a  law  nullified  by  its  own 


1  Superstes  uxor  aut  filii,  per  quos 
ecclesiastica  solet  periclitari  substantia. 
— Pelagii  PP.  I.  Cethego  Patricio. 

2  L.  Wisigoth.  Lib.  v.  Tit.  i.  1.  2. 

3  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  xm.  Epist.  6. 
— This  rule  had  come  to  be  very  gen¬ 
erally  neglected.  The  importance 
attached  to  it,  however,  by  strict  disci¬ 
plinarians  is  well  illustrated  in  the  firm¬ 
ness  displayed  by  John,  Patriarch  of 
Alexandria,  a  contemporary  of  Gregory, 
whose  bountiful  charity  had  earned  for 
him  the  title  of  Eleemosynarius.  In  a 
time  of  extreme  famine,  a  wealthy 
aspirant  offered  him  200,000  bushels  of 
corn  and  100  pounds  of  gold  for  the 


grade  of  deacon.  He  had  unluckily 
been  twice  married,  and  John  refused 
the  dazzling  bribe,  although  the  epis- 
i  copal  treasury  had  been  exhausted  in 
relieving  the  necessities  of  the  suffering 
people  (Thomassin,  Discip.  de  l’Eglise, 
Pt.  ii.  Liv.  3,  c.  15.) 

4  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  xiii.  Epistt.  35, 
36. 

5  Ibid.  Lib.  iv.  Epist.  26;  Lib.  v. 
Epist.  3 ;  Lib.  vm.  Epist.  24. — Similar 
attempts  had  previously  been  made  by 
sundry  provincial  councils.  In  the  case 
of  Andrew,  Bishop  of  Tarentum,  who 
was  accused  of  maintaining  relations 
with  a  former  concubine,  Gregory  rec- 


124 


THE  BARBARIANS. 


severity,  which  rendered  its  observance  impossible.  In  587,  his 
predecessor  Pelagius  had  ordered  that  in  Sicily  the  Roman  rule 
should  be  followed  of  separating  subdeacons  from  their  wives,  but  it 
appeared  cruel  to  Gregory  that  this  should  be  enforced  on  those  who 
had  no  warning  of  such  rigor  when  accepting  the  subdiaconate,  and 
one  of  the  earliest  acts  of  his  pontificate  was  to  allow  them  to  resume 
relations  with  their  wives;  but  he  ordered  that  they  should  abstain 
from  all  service  of  the  altar,  and  that  in  future  no  one  should  be 
admitted  to  that  grade  who  would  not  formally  take  a  vow  of  con¬ 
tinence.1  There  is  not  much  trace  in  contemporary  history  of  any 
improvement  resulting  from  these  efforts,  and  towards  the  very  close 
of  his  pontificate,  in  602,  we  find  him  entreating  Queen  Brunhilda 
to  exercise  her  power  in  restraining  the  still  unbridled  license  of  the 
Frankish  clergy — a  task  which  he  assures  her  is  essential  if  she 
desires  to  transmit  her  possessions  in  peace  to  her  posterity.2  He 
also  endeavored  to  reform  the  perennial  abuse  of  the  residence  of 
■women,  a  reform  which  the  church  has  been  vainly  attempting  ever 
since  the  canon  of  Nicsea.3  That  Gregory’s  zeal,  however,  exercised 
some  influence  is  manifested  by  the  fact  that  tradition  in  the  Middle 
Ages  occasionally  associated  his  name  with  the  introduction  of  celi¬ 
bacy  in  the  church.  The  impression  which  he  produced  is  shown  by 
the  wild  legend  which  relates  that,  soon  after  issuing  and  strictly 
enforcing  a  decretal  on  the  subject,  he  happened  to  have  his  fish¬ 
ponds  drawn  off,  when  the  heads  of  no  less  than  six  thousand  infants 
were  found  in  them — the  offspring  of  ecclesiastics,  destroyed  to  avoid 
detection — which  filled  him  with  so  much  horror  that  he  abandoned 
the  vain  attempt.4  Yet  in  Italy  the  residence  of  wives  was  still 
permitted  to  those  in  orders,  under  the  restriction  that  they  should 
be  treated  as  sisters;5  and  Gregory  relates  as  worthy  of  all  imitation 
the  case  of  a  holy  priest  of  Nursia  who,  following  the  example  of 
the  saints  in  depriving  himself  of  even  lawful  indulgences,  had  per¬ 
sistently  relegated  his  wife  to  a  distance.  When  at  length  he  lay  on 
his  death-bed,  to  all  appearance  inanimate,  the  wife  came  to  bid  him 


ognizing  the  impossibility  of  obtaining  i 
proof,  leaves  it  to  his  own  conscience. 
If  he  has  had  any  commerce  with  her 
since  his  ordination,  he  is  commanded 
at  once  to  resign  his  position  as  the 
only  mode  of  insuring  his  salvation 
(Ibid.  Lib.  in.  Epistt.  45,  46). 

1  Ibid.  Lib.  i.  Epist.  44 ;  Lib.  iv. 
Epistt.  5,  36. 


2  Ibid.  Lib.  xi.  Epist.  69. 

3  Ibid.  Lib.  ix.  Epist.  106. 

*  Udalric.  Bamberg.  Cod.  Lib.  n. 
Epist.  10. 

5  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Lib.  I.  Epist.  52 ; 
Lib.  ix.  Epist.  60. 


9 


GREGORY  THE  GREAT. 


125 


a  last  farewell,  and  placed  a  mirror  to  his  lips,  to  see  whether  life 
was  yet  extinct.  Her  kindly  ministrations  roused  the  dominant 
asceticism  in  his  expiring  soul,  and  he  gathered  strength  enough  to 
exclaim,  “Woman,  depart!  Take  aw^ay  the  straw,  for  there  is  yet 
fire  here” — wdiich  supreme  effort  of  self-immolation  procured  him 
on  the  instant  a  beatific  vision  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  during 
wThich  he  lapsed  ecstatically  into  eternity.1 

In  considering  so  thoroughly  artificial  a  system  of  morality,  it  is 
perhaps  scarcely  worth  while  to  inquire  into  the  value  of  a  virtue 
which  could  only  be  preserved  by  shunning  temptation  with  so 
scrupulous  a  care. 

1  Gregor.  PP.  I.  Dial.  Lib.  iv.  cap.  xi. 


IX. 


THE  CARLOVINGIANS. 


Even  the  energy  and  authority  of  Gregory  the  Great  were  power¬ 
less  to  restore  order  in  the  chaos  of  an  utterly  demoralized  society. 
In  Spain,  the  languishing  empire  of  the  Wisigoths  was  fast  sinking 
under  the  imbecility  which  invited  the  easy  conquest  of  the  Saracens. 
In  France,  Brunhilda  and  Fredegonda  were  inflaming  the  fierce  con¬ 
tentions  which  eventually  destroyed  the  Merovingian  dynasty,  and 
which  abandoned  the  kingdom  at  once  to  the  vices  of  civilization 
and  the  savage  atrocities  of  barbarism.1  In  Italy,  the  Lombards, 
more  detested  than  any  of  their  predecessors,  by  their  ceaseless  rav¬ 
ages  made  the  Ostrogothic  rule  regretted,  and  gleaned  with  their 
swords  such  scanty  remnants  of  plunder  as  had  escaped  the  hordes 
which  had  successively  swept  from  the  gloomy  forests  of  the  North 
across  the  rich  valleys  and  fertile  plains  of  the  mistress  of  the  world. 
Anarchy  and  confusion  everywhere  scarce  offered  a  field  for  the 
exercise  of  the  humbler  virtues,  nor  could  the  church  expect  to 
escape  the  corruption  which  infected  every  class  from  which  she 
could  draw  her  recruits.  Still,  amid  the  crowd  of  turbulent  and 
worldly  ecclesiastics,  whose  only  aim  was  the  gratification  of  the 
senses  or  the  success  of  criminal  ambition,  some  holy  men  were  to 
be  found  who  sought  the  mountain  and  forest  as  a  refuge  from  the 
ceaseless  and  all-pervading  disorder  around  them.  St.  Gall  and  St. 
Columba,  Willibrod  and  Boniface,  were  types  of  these.  Devoted  to 
the  severest  asceticism,  burying  themselves  in  the  wilderness  and 
subsisting  on  such  simple  hire  as  the  labor  of  their  hands  could 
wring  from  a  savage  land,  the  selfishness  of  the  anchorite  did  not 


1  In  649  we  find  Amandus,  Bishop 
of  Maestricht,  resigning  his  office  on 
account  of  the  impossibility  of  en¬ 
forcing  the  canons  among  his  priests 
and  deacons.  Martin  I.  endeavored  to 


dissuade  him  from  his  purpose,  and 
urged  his  proceeding  with  the  utmost 
rigor  against  all  transgressors  (Hartz- 
heim  Concil.  German.  I.  28). 


DEMORALIZATION  OF  THE  AGE. 


127 


extinguish  in  them  the  larger  aims  of  the  Christian,  and  by  their 
civilizing  labors  among  the  heathen  they  proved  themselves  worthy 
disciples  of  the  Apostles. 

Thicker  grew  the  darkness  as  Tarik  drove  the  Gothic  fugitives 
before  him  on  the  plains  of  Xeres,  and  as  the  house  of  Pepin  d’He- 
ristel  gradually  supplanted  the  long-haired  descendants  of  Clovis. 
The  Austrasian  Mayors  of  the  Palace  had  scanty  reverence  for  mitre 
and  crozier,  and  it  is  a  proof  how  little  hold  the  clergy  had  earned 
upon  the  respect  and  affection  of  the  people,  when  the  usurpers  in 
that  long  revolution  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  conciliate  their  sup¬ 
port.  In  fact,  the  policy  of  those  shrewd  and  able  men  was  rather 
to  oppress  the  church  and  to  parcel  out  its  wealth  and  dignities 
among  their  warriors,  who  made  no  pretence  of  piety  nor  deigned 
to  undertake  the  mockery  of  religious  duties.  Rome  could  interpose 
no  resistance  to  these  abuses,  for,  involved  alternately  in  strife  with 
the  Lombards  and  the  Iconoclastic  Emperors,  the  Popes  implored 
the  aid  of  the  oppressor  himself,  and  were  in  no  position  to  protest 
against  the  aggressions  which  he  might  commit  at  home. 

In  Italy,  the  condition  of  discipline  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact 
that,  in  721,  Gregory  II.  considered  it  necessary  to  call  a  synod  for 
the  special  purpose  of  condemning  incestuous  unions  and  the  mar¬ 
riages  of  nuns,  which  he  declared  were  openly  practised,1  and  the 
canons  then  promulgated  received  so  little  attention  that  they  had  to 
be  repeated  by  another  synod  in  732.2  In  fact,  the  vow  of  chastity 
was  frequently  taken  by  widows  that  they  might  escape  a  second 
marriage  and  thus  be  able  to  live  in  shameless  license  without  being 
subject  to  the  watchful  control  of  a  husband,  and  an  edict  of  Arechis 
Duke  of  Beneventum  about  the  year  774  orders  that  all  such  godless 
women  shall  be  seized  and  shut  up  in  convents.3  That  the  secular 
clergy  should  consider  ordination  no  bar  to  matrimony  need  therefore 
excite  little  surprise.  There  is  extant  a  charter  of  Talesperianus, 
Bishop  of  Lucca,  in  725,  by  .which  he  confirms  a  little  monastery 
and  hospital  to  Romuald  the  priest  and  his  wife — “presbiteria  sua.” 
The  document  recites  that  this  couple  had  come  on  a  pilgrimage  from 
beyond  the  Po ;  that  they  had  settled  in  the  lands  of  the  Convent  of 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Martin  in  the  diocese  of  Lucca,  where  they  had 
bought  land  and  built  .the  institution  which  the  good  bishop  thus 

1  Concil.  Roman,  ann.  721.  i  3  Capitul.  Arechis  Benevent.  cap. 

2  Chron.  Gradensis  Supplement.  1  XIT'  (^anciani  ’ 


128 


THE  CARLO  VINGIANS. 


confirms  to  them  with  certain  privileges.  He  evidently  felt  that 
there  was  nothing  irregular  in  their  maintaining  the  connection,  and 
he  lays  upon  them  no  conditions  of  separation.1 

In  France,  it  may  be  readily  believed  that  discipline  was  even 
more  neglected.  For  eighty  years  scarce  a  council  was  held ;  no 
attempts  were  made  to  renew  or  enforce  the  rules  of  discipline,  and 
the  observances  of  religion  were  at  length  well-nigh  forgotten.  In 
726,  Boniface  even  felt  scruples  as  to  associating  in  ordinary  inter¬ 
course  with  men  so  licentious  and  depraved  as  the  Frankish  bishops 
and  priests,  and  he  applied  to  Gregory  II.  for  the  solution  of  his 
doubts.  Gregory,  in  reply,  ordered  him  to  employ  argument  in 
endeavoring  to  convince  them  of  their  errors,  and  by  no  means  to 
withdraw  himself  from  their  society,2  a  politic  toleration  of  vice  con¬ 
trasting  strangely  with  his  fierce  defiance  of  the  iconoclastic  heresy 
of  Leo  the  Isaurian,  when  he  risked  the  papacy  itself  in  his  eagerness 
to  preserve  his  beloved  images. 

When,  however,  the  new  dynasty  began  to  assume  a  permanent 
position,  it  sought  to  strengthen  itself  by  the  influence  of  the  church. 
Like  the  modern  Charlemagne,  it  saw  in  a  restoration  of  religion  a 
means  of  assuring  its  stability  by  linking  its  fortunes  with  those  of 
the  hierarchy.  A  radical  in  opposition  becomes  of  necessity  a  con¬ 
servative  in  power ;  and  the  arts  which  had  served  to  supplant  the 
hereditary  occupants  of  the  throne  were  no  longer  advisable  after 
success  had  indicated  a  new  line  of  policy.  As  Clovis  embraced 
Christianity  in  order  to  consolidate  his  conquests  into  an  empire,  so 
Carloman  and  Pepin-le-Bref  sought  the  sanction  of  religion  to  con¬ 
secrate  their  power  to  their  descendants,  and  the  Carlovingian  system 
thenceforth  became  that  of  law  and  order,  organizing  a  firm  and 
settled  government  out  of  the  anarchical  chaos  of  social  elements. 

It  was  the  pious  Carloman  who  first  saw  clearly  how  necessary 
was  the  aid  of  the  church  in  any  attempt  to  introduce  civilization 
and  subordination  among  his  turbulent  subjects.  Immediately  on 
his  accession,  he  called  upon  St.  Boniface  to  assist  him  in  the  work, 
and  the  Apostle  of  Germany  undertook  the  arduous  task.  How 
arduous  it  was  may  be  conceived  from  his  description  of  the  utterly 
demoralized  condition  of  the  clergy,  when  he  appealed  to  Pope  Zach¬ 
ary  for  advice  and  authority  to  assist  in  eradicating  the  frightful 

1  Muratori  Antiq.  Med.  yEvi  Dissert,  lxxiv. 

2  Gregor.  PP.  IT.  Epist.  14  cap.  12. 


DEMORALIZATION  OF  THE  AGE. 


129 


promiscuous  licentiousness  which  was  displayed  with  careless  cynicism 
throughout  all  grades  of  the  ecclesiastical  body.1  The  details  are  too 
disgusting  for  translation,  but  the  statement  can  readily  be  believed 
when  we  see  what  manner  of  men  filled  the  controlling  positions  in 
the  hierarchy. 

Charles  Martel  had  driven  out  St.  Rigobert,  Archbishop  of  Rheims, 
and  had  bestowed  that  primatial  see  on  one  of  his  warriors  named 
Milo,  who  soon  succeeded  in  likewise  obtaining  possession  of  the 
equally  important  archiepiscopate  of  Treves.2  Milo  was  himself  an 
indication  of  the  prevailing  laxity  of  discipline,  for  he  was  the  son 
of  Basinus  his  predecessor  in  the  see  of  Treves.3  He  is  described 
as  being  a  clerk  in  tonsure,  hut  in  every  other  respect  an  irreligious 
laic,  yet  Boniface,  with  all  the  aid  of  his  royal  patrons,  was  unable 
to  oust  him  from  his  inappropriate  dignities,  and  in  752,  ten  years 
after  the  commencement  of  his  reforms,  we  find  Pope  Zachary,  in 
response  to  an  appeal  for  advice,  counselling  him  to  leave  Milo  and 
other  similar  wolves  in  sheep’s  clothing  to  the  divine  vengeance.4 
Boniface,  apparently,  found  it  requisite  to  follow  this  advice  and  the 
divine  vengeance  did  not  come  until  Milo  had  enjoyed  his  incongru¬ 
ous  dignities  for  forty  years,  when  at  length  he  was  removed  by  an 
appropriate  death,  received  from  a  wild  boar  in  hunting.5  He  was 
only  a  type  of  many  others  who  openly  defied  all  attempts  to  remove 


1  Modo  autem  maxima  ex  parte 
episcopates  sedes  traditae  sunt  laicis 
cupidis  ad  possidendum,  vel  adulte¬ 
rate  clericis,  scortatoribus  et  publi- 
canis  saeculariter  ad  perfruendum  .  .  . 
Si  invenero  inter  illos  diaconos  quos 
nominant,  qui  a  pueritia  sua  semper 
in  stupris,  semper  in  adulteriis  et  in 
omnibus  semper  spurcitiis  vitam  du- 
centes,  sub  tali  testimonio  venerunt 
ad  diaconatum,  et  modo  in  diaconatu 
concubinas  quatuor  vel  quinque  vel 
plures  noctu  in  lecto  habentes,  evan- 
gelium  tamen  legere  et  diaconos  se 
nominare  non  erubescunt,  nec  metu- 
unt :  et  sic  in  talibus  incestis  ad  ordi- 
nem  presbyteratus  venientes,  in  iis- 
dem  peccatis  perdurantes,  et  peccata 
peccatis  adjicientes,  presbyteratus  of¬ 
ficio  fungentes,  dicunt  se  pro  populo 
posse  intercedere,  et  sacras  oblationes 
offerre.  Novissime,  quod  pejus  est, 
sub  talibus  testimoniis  per  gradus  sin- 
gulos  ascendentes,  ordinantur  et  no- 
minantur  episcopi.  Si  usquam  tales 


invenero  inter  illos,  rogo  ut  habeam 
prseceptum  et  conscriptum  auctorita- 
tis  vestrae,  quid  de  talibus  diffiniatis, 
ut  per  responsum  Apostolicum  convin- 
cantur  et  arguantur  peccatores. — Boni- 
facii  Epist.  132. 

2  Milo  quidam,  tonsura  clericus, 
moribus,  habitu,  et  actu  irreligiosus 
laicus,  episcopia  Remorum  ac  Trevi- 
rorum  usurpans  insimul,  per  multos 
annos  pessumdederit. — Hincmar.  Epist. 
xxx.  c.  20. — Sola  tonsura  clerico,  qui 
secum  processerat  ad  bellum. — Flo- 
doard.  Hist.  Remens.  Lib.  n.  c.  12. — 
Nihilque  in  eo  de  clericali  honore  vel 
vita  nisi  sola  tonsura  enituit. — Hist. 
Trevirens.  (D’Achery  Spicileg.  II.  212). 

3  Hist.  Trevirens.  (D’Achery  Spici¬ 
leg.  II.  212). 

4  Bonifacii  Epist.  142. 

5  Hist.  Trevirens.  loc.  cit. 

9 


130 


THE  CARLOVINGIANS. 


them.  One,  who  is  described  as  “pugnator  et  fornicator,”  gave  up, 
it  is  true,  the  spiritualities  of  his  see,  but  held  to  the  temporalities 
with  a  gripe  that  nothing  could  loosen ;  another  utterly  disregarded 
the  excommunications  launched  at  his  head,  and  Zachary  and  Boni¬ 
face  at  last  were  fain  to  abandon  him  to  his  evil  courses.1  Somewhat 
more  success,  indeed,  he  had  with  Gervilius,  son  and  successor  to 
Geroldus,  Bishop  of  Mainz.  The  latter,  accompanying  Carloman  in 
an  expedition  against  the  Saxons,  was  killed  in  battle.  Bishop  Ger¬ 
vilius,  in  another  foray,  recognized  his  father’s  slayer,  invited  him  to 
a  friendly  interview',  and  treacherously  stabbed  him,  exclaiming,  in 
the  rude  poetry  of  the  chronicler,  “Accipe  jam  ferrum  quo  patrem 
vindico  carum.”  This  act  of  filial  piety  was  not  looked  upon  as 
unclerical,  until  Boniface  took  it  up ;  Gervilius  was  finally  forced  to 
abandon  the  see  of  Mainz,  and  it  was  given  to  Boniface  himself.2 
When  such  were  the  prelates,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  rules  of 
abstinence  and  asceticism  received  much  attention  from  their  subor¬ 
dinates.  Boniface  admits,  in  an  epistle  to  King  Ecgberht,  that,  in 
consequence  of  the  universal  licentiousness,  he  was  compelled  to 
restore  the  guilty  to  their  functions  after  penitence,  as  the  canonical 
punishment  of  dismissal  would  leave  none  to  perform  the  sacred 
offices.3  What  the  church,  however,  could  not  prevent  on  earth,  it 
at  least  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  punished  in  the  future  life.  It 
was  principally  for  the  support  given  to  Milo  of  Rheims  among  his 
many  other  similar  misdeeds,  that  Charles  Martel  was  condemned  to 
eternal  torture,  which  was,  as  a  wholesome  example,  made  manifest 
to  the  most  incredulous.  St.  Eucherius,  in  a  vision,  saw  him  plunged 
into  the  depths  of  hell,  and  on  consulting  St.  Boniface  and  Fulrad 
Abbot  of  St.  Denis,  it  was  resolved  to  open  Charles’s  tomb.  The 
only  tenant  of  the  sepulchre  w'as  found  to  be  a  serpent,  and  the  "walls 
wTere  blackened  as  though  by  fire,  thus  proving  the  truth  of  the  reve¬ 
lation,  and  holding  out  an  awful  warning  to  future  wrongdoers.4 

How  much  of  the  license  complained  of  was  indiscriminate  con¬ 
cubinage,  and  howT  much  wras  merely  intercourse  wTith  legitimate 
wives,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining.  The  latter  Boniface  suc¬ 
ceeded  in  suppressing,  for  the  church  could  control  her  sacraments.5 
The  former  was  beyond  his  power. 


1  Bonifacii  loc.  cit. 

7  Othlon.  Vit.  S.  Bonifac.  Lib.  i.  c. 
44. 

3  Bonifacii  Epist.  85. 


4  Flodoard.  Hist.  Remens.  Lib.  n. 
cap.  12. — Capit.  Caroli  Calvi  Tit. 
xxvii.  cap.  7  (Baluze). 

5  Et  tam  laicorum  injusta  concubi- 


REFORMS  OF  BONIFACE. 


131 


Armed  with  full  authority  from  Pope  Zachary,  Carloman  and 
Boniface  commenced  the  labor  of  reducing  to  order  this  chaos  of 
passion  and  license.  Under  their  auspices  a  synod  was  held,  April 
23,  T42,  in  which  all  unchaste  priests  and  deacons  were  declared 
incapable  of  holding  benefices,  were  degraded  and  forced  to  do  pen¬ 
ance.  Bishops  were  required  to  have  a  witness  to  testify  to  the 
purity  of  their  lives  and  doctrines,  before  they  could  perform  their 
episcopal  functions.  For  all  future  lapses  from  virtue,  priests  were 
to  be  severely  whipped  and  imprisoned  for  two  years  on  bread  and 
water,  with  prolongation  of  the  punishment  at  the  discretion  of  their 
bishops.  Other  ecclesiastics,  monks,  and  nuns  were  to  be  whipped 
thrice  and  similarly  imprisoned  for  one  year,  besides  the  stigma  of 
having  the  head  shaved.  All  monasteries,  moreover,  were  to  adopt 
and  follow  rigidly  the  rule  of  St.  Benedict.1 

The  stringency  of  these  measures  shows  not  only  the  extent  of 
the  evil  requiring  such  means  of  cure,  but  the  fixed  determination 
of  the  authorities  to  effect  their  purpose.  The  clergy,  however,  did 
not  submit  without  resistance.  It  is  probable  that  they  stirred  up 
the  people,  and  that  signs  of  general  disapprobation  were  manifested 
at  a  rigor  so  extreme  in  punishing  faults  which  for  more  than  two 
generations  had  passed  wholly  unnoticed,  for  during  the  same  year 
Zachary  addressed  an  epistle  to  the  Franks  with  the  object  of  enlisting 
them  in  the  cause.  The  ill-success  of  their  arms  against  the  Pagans 
he  attributes  to  the  vices  of  their  clergy,  and  he  promises  them  that 
if  they  show  themselves  obedient  to  Boniface,  and  if  they  can  enjoy 
the  prayers  of  pure  and  holy  priests,  they  shall  in  future  have  an 
easy  triumph  over  their  heathen  foes.2  Yet  many  adulterous  priests 
and  bishops,  noted  for  the  infamy  of  their  lives,  pretended  that  they 
had  received  from  Rome  itself  dispensations  to  continue  in  their 
ministry — an  allegation  which  Zachary  of  course  repelled  with 
indignation.3 

Carloman,  however,  pursued  his  self-imposed  task  without  flinching. 
On  March  1st,  743,  he  held  another  synod  at  Leptines,  where  the 
clergy  promised  to  observe  the  ancient  canons,  and  to  restore  the 
discipline  of  the  church.  The  statutes  enacted  the  previous  year 


narum  copula  partim  exhortante 
sancto  viro  separata  est,  quam  etiam 
clericorum  nefanda  cum  uxoribus  con- 
junctio  sejuncta  ac  separata. — Willi¬ 
bald.  Yit.  S.  Bonifac.  c.  9. 


1  Capit.  Caroloman.  ann.  742  c. 
3,  6. 

2  Bonifacil  Epist.  137. 

3  Ibid.  Epist.  132,  142. 


1, 


132 


THE  CAKLOVINGIANS. 


were  again  declared  to  be  in  full  vigor  for  future  offences,  while  for 
previous  ones  penitence  and  degradation  were  once  more  decreed.1 

These  regulations  affected  only  Austrasia,  the  German  portion  of 
the  Frankish  empire,  ruled  by  Carloman.  His  brother,  Pepin-le- 
Bref,  who  governed  Neustria,  or  France,  was  less  pious,  and  had  not 
apparently  as  yet  recognized  the  policy  of  reforming  out  of  their 
possessions  the  warrior  vassals  whom  his  father  had  gratified  with 
ecclesiastical  benefices.  At  length,  however,  he  was  induced  to  lend 
his  aid,  and  in  744  he  assembled  a  synod  at  Soissons  for  the  purpose. 
So  completely  had  the  discipline  of  the  church  been  neglected  and 
forgotten,  that  Pepin  was  obliged  to  appeal  to  Pope  Zachary  for  an 
authoritative  declaration  as  to  the  grades  in  which  marriage  was  pro¬ 
hibited.2  Yet  his  measures  were  but  lukewarm,  for  he  contented 
himself  with  simply  forbidding  unchastity  in  priests,  the  marriage 
of  nuns,  and  the  residence  of  stranger  women  with  clerks,  no  special 
punishment  being  threatened,  beyond  a  general  allusion  to  existing 
laws.3 

Thus  assailed  by  both  the  supreme  ecclesiastical  and  temporal 
authorities,  the  clergy  still  were  stubborn.  Some  defended  them¬ 
selves  as  being  legitimately  entitled  to  have  a  concubine — or  rather, 
we  may  presume,  a  wife.  Among  these  we  find  a  certain  Bishop 
Clement  described  as  a  pestilent  heresiarch,  with  followers  who  main¬ 
tained  that  his  two  children,  born  during  his  prelacy,  did  not  unfit 
him  for  his  episcopal  functions ;  and  a  synod  held  in  Rome,  October 
31st,  745,  was  required  for  his  condemnation,  the  local  authorities 
apparently  proving  powerless.  Even  this  was  not  sufficient,  for  in 
January,  747,  we  find  Zachary  directing  Boniface  to  bring  him 
before  a  local  council,  and  if  he  still  proved  contumacious,  to  refer 
the  matter  again  to  Rome.4  Others,  again,  unwilling  to  forego  their 
secular  mode  of  existence,  or  to  abandon  the  livelihood  afforded  by 
the  church,  were  numerous  and  hardy  enough  to  ask  Pepin  and  Car¬ 
loman  to  set  apart  for  them  churches  and  monasteries  in  which  they 
could  live  as  they  were  accustomed  to  do.  So  nearly  did  they  suc¬ 
ceed  in  this  attempt,  that  Boniface  found  it  necessary  to  appeal  to 
Zachary  to  prevent  so  flagrant  an  infraction  of  the  canons,  and 
Zachary  wrote  to  the  princes  with  instructions  as  to  the  mode  of 
answering  the  petition.5  Others,  still  more  audacious,  assailed 


1  Capit.  Caroloman.  ann.  743  c.  1. 

2  Zachar.  PP.  Epist.  8,  c.  11,  18. 

3  Pippini  Capit.  ann.  744  c.  4,  8,  9. 


4  Bonifac.  Epistt.  135,  139  (Zachar. 
PP.  Epist.  9). 

5  Othlon.  Vit.  S.  Bonif.  Lib.  ii.  c.  11. 


RESISTANCE  OF  THE  CLERGY. 


133 


Boniface  in  every  way,  endeavored  to  weary  him  out,  and  even, 
rightly  regarding  him  as  the  cause  of  their  persecution  and  tribula¬ 
tions,  made  attempts  upon  his  life.1 

That  he  should  have  escaped,  indeed,  is  surprising,  when  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  age  is  considered,  and  the  nature  of  the  evils  inflicted 
on  those  who  must  have  regarded  the  reform  as  a  wanton  outrage  on 
their  rights.  As  late  as  T48,  Boniface  describes  the  false  bishops 
and  priests,  sacrilegious  and  wandering  hypocrites  and  adulterers,  as 
much  more  numerous  than  those  who  as  yet  had  been  forced  to  com¬ 
pliance  with  the  rules.  Driven  from  the  churches,  but  supported  by 
the  sympathizing  people,  they  performed  their  ministry  among  the 
fields  and  in  the  cabins  of  the  peasants,  who  concealed  them  from 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities.2  This  is  not  a  description  of  mere 
sensual  worldlings,  and  it  is  probable  that  by  this  time  persecution 
had  ranged  the  evil-disposed  on  the  winning  side.  Those  who  thus 
exercised  their  ministry  in  secret  and  in  wretchedness,  retaining  the 
veneration  of  the  people,  were  therefore  men  who  believed  them¬ 
selves  honorably  and  legitimately  married,  and  who  were  incapable 
of  sacrificing  wife  and  children  for  worldly  advantage  or  in  blind 
obedience  to  a  rule  which  to  them  was  novel,  unnatural,  and  inde¬ 
fensible. 

Boniface  escaped  from  the  vengeful  efforts  of  those  who  suffered 
from  his  zeal,  to  fall,  in  755,  under  the  sword  of  the  equally  un¬ 
grateful  Frisians.  It  is  probable  that  up  to  the  time  of  his  death  he 
was  occupied  with  the  reformation  of  the  clergy  in  conjunction  with 
his  missionary  labors,  for  in  752  we  find  him  still  engaged  in  the 
hopeless  endeavor  to  eject  the  unclerical  prelates,  who  even  yet 
held  over  from  the  iron  age  of  Charles  Martel.  His  disappearance 
from  the  scene,  however,  made  but  little  change  in  the  movement 
which  had  owed  so  much  to  his  zeal. 

In  747  Carloman’s  pious  aspirations  had  led  him  from  a  throne  to 
a  cloister,  and  the  monastery  of  Monte  Casino  welcomed  its  most 
illustrious  inmate.  Pepin  received  the  whole  vast  kingdom,  and  his 
ambitious  designs  drew  him  daily  closer  to  the  church,  the  impor¬ 
tance  of  whose  support  he  commenced  to  appreciate.  His  policy, 
in  consolidating  the  power  of  his  house  and  in  founding  a  new 


1  Bonifacii  Epist.  135. — S.  Ludgeri  Vit.  S.  Bonifacii. 

2  Bonifacii  Epist.  140. 


134 


THE  CARLO VINGIANS. 


dynasty,  led  him  necessarily  to  reorganize  the  anarchical  elements 
of  society.  As  an  acknowledged  monarch,  a  regularly  constituted 
hierarchy  and  recognized  subordination  to  the  laws,  both  civil  and 
ecclesiastical,  were  requisite  to  the  success  of  his  government  and  to 
the  establishment  of  his  race.  Accordingly,  we  find  him  carrying 
out  systematically  the  work  commenced  by  Carloman  and  Boniface, 
to  which  at  first  his  support  had  been  rather  negative  than  positive. 

Six  w'eeks  after  the  martyrdom  of  Boniface,  Pepin  held  a  synod 
in  his  royal  palace  of  Verneuil,  in  which  this  tendency  is  very  appar¬ 
ent.  Full  power  was  given  to  the  bishops  in  their  respective  dioceses 
to  enforce  the  canons  of  the  church  on  the  clergy,  the  monks,  and 
the  laity.  The  monasteries  were  especially  intrusted  to  the  episcopal 
care,  and  means  were  provided  for  reducing  the  refractory  to  sub¬ 
mission.  The  rule  of  Benedict  was  proclaimed  as  in  force  in  all 
conventual  establishments,  and  cloistered  residence  was  strictly 
enjoined.  All  ecclesiastics  were  ordered  to  pay  implicit  obedience 
to  their  bishops,  and  this  was  secured  by  the  power  of  excommuni¬ 
cation,  which  was  no  longer,  as  in  earlier  ages,  the  simple  suspension 
from  religious  privileges,  but  was  a  ban  which  deprived  the  offender 
of  all  association  with  his  fellows,  and  exposed  him,  if  contumacious, 
to  exile  by  the  secular  pow’er.  By  the  appointment  of  metropolitans, 
a  tribunal  of  higher  resort  was  instituted,  while  two  synods  to  be 
held  each  year  gave  the  opportunity  both  of  legislation  and  of  final 
judgment.  Submission  to  their  decisions  was  insured  by  threatening 
stripes  to  all  who  should  appeal  from  them  to  the  royal  court.1 

Such  are  the  main  features,  as  far  as  they  relate  to  our  subject,  of 
this  Capitulary,  which  so  strikingly  reveals  the  organizing  system  of 
the  Carlovingian  polity.  Carried  out  by  the  rare  intelligence  and 
vigor  of  Charlemagne,  it  gave  a  precocious  development  of  civiliza¬ 
tion  to  Europe,  transitory  because  in  advance  of  the  age,  and  because 
it  was  based  on  the  intellectual  force  of  the  ruler,  and  not  on  the  virtue 
and  cultivation  of  a  people  as  yet  too  barbarous  to  appreciate  it.  - 

The  organization  of  the  church,  moreover,  received  at  the  same 
time  an  efficient  impulse  by  the  institution  of  the  order  of  canons, 
founded  virtually  in  762,  the  year  in  which  St.  Chrodegang,  Bishop 
of  Metz,  promulgated  the  Rule  for  their  government.  This  Rule 
of  course  entirely  forbids  all  intercourse  with  women,  and  endeavors 
to  suppress  it  by  punishing  transgressors  with  stripes,  incarceration. 


1  Capit.  Pippini  arm.  755. 


EFFECT  OF  THE  REFORM. 


135 


and  deposition.1  The  lofty  rank  of  St.  Chrodegang,  who  was  a  cousin 
of  Pepin-le-Bref,  and  the  eminent  piety  which  merited  canonization, 
gave  him  wide  influence  which  doubtless  assisted  in  extending  the 
new  institution,  but  it  also  had  recommendations  of  its  own  which 
were  sufficient  to  insure  its  success.  By  converting  the  cathedral 
clergy  into  monks,  bound  by  implicit  obedience  towards  their  supe¬ 
riors,  it  brought  no  little  increase  of  power  to  the  bishops,  and 
enabled  them  to  exert  new  authority  and  influence.  It  is  no  wonder 
therefore  that  the  Order  spread  rapidly  and  was  adopted  in  most  of 
the  dioceses. 

For  a  century  we  hear  nothing  more  of  sacerdotal  marriage — and 
yet  it  may  be  doubted  whether  clerical  morality  had  really  been 
improved  by  the  well-meant  reforms  of  Boniface.  These  were  fol¬ 
lowed  up  by  Charlemagne  with  all  his  resistless  energy,  and  the  im¬ 
portance  which  he  attached  to  the  subject  is  shown  by  an  epistle  of 
Adrian  I.  denying  certain  assertions  made  to  the  Frankish  sovereign, 
inculpating  the  purity  of  the  Roman  clergy.  Adrian,  in  defending 
his  flock,  assumes  that  the  object  of  the  slanders  can  only  have  been 
to  produce  a  quarrel  between  himself  and  Charlemagne,  who  must 
evidently  have  made  strong  representations  on  the  subject  to  the 
Pontiff.2  Under  such  pressure  perhaps  there  was  something  less  of 
shameless  licentiousness ;  the  episcopal  chairs  were  no  longer  defiled 
by  the  cynical  lubricity  of  unworthy  prelates ;  but  in  the  mass  of 
the  clergy  the  passions,  deprived  of  all  legitimate  gratification,  could 
not  be  restrained  in  a  race  so  little  accustomed  to  self-control,  and 
unchastity  remained  a  corroding  ulcer  which  Charlemagne  and  Louis- 
le-Debonnaire  vainly  endeavored  to  eradicate.  The  former,  indeed, 
we  find  asking  in  811  whether  the  only  difference  between  clerk  and 
layman  is  that  the  former  does  not  bear  arms  and  is  not  publicly 
married ; 3  while  Ghaerbald,  Bishop  of  Liege,  a  few  years  before  had 
ordered  that  all  priests  maintaining  intercourse  with  their  wives 
should  be  deprived  of  their  benefices  and  be  subjected  to  penitence 
until  death.4 

1  Regul.  S.  Chrodegangi  cap.  29,  56, 

68,  70. 

2  Cod.  Carolini  Epist.  lxiv.  (Patro- 
log.  T.  98  p.  319).  Yet  even  in  772 
we  find  that  a  council  in  Bavaria  found 
it  necessary  to  prohibit  the  marriage 

|  VII.  31). 


of  nuns.  —  Concil.  Dingolvmg.  can. 
(Hartzheim  Concil.  German.  I.  129). 

3  Capit.  Car.  Mag.  II.  ann.  811  cap. 
iv.  (Baluz.  I.  329 — Ed.  Venet.). 

4  Ghaerbaldi  Judicia  Sacerdotalia  de 
Criminibus  c.  13  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll. 


136 


THE  CAELOVINGIANS. 


It  would  be  an  unprofitable  task  to  recapitulate  the  constantly 
repeated  legislation  prohibiting  the  residence  of  women  with  the 
clergy  and  repressing  the  disorders  and  irregularities  of  the  monastic 
establishments.  It  would  be  but  a  reiteration  of  the  story  already 
related  in  previous  centuries,  and  its  only  importance  would  be  in 
showing  by  the  frequency  of  the  edicts  how  utterly  ineffectual  they 
were.  When  Louis-le-Debonnaire,  in  826,  decreed  that  the  seduc¬ 
tion  of  a  nun  was  to  be  punished  by  the  death  of  both  the  partners 
in  guilt ;  that  the  property  of  both  was  to  be  confiscated  to  the 
church,  and  that  the  count  in  whose  district  the  crime  occurred,  if 
he  neglected  its  prosecution,  was  to  be  degraded,  deprived  of  his 
office,  undergo  public  penance,  and  pay  his  full  wer-gild  to  the  fisc, 
the  frightful  severity  of  the  enactment  is  the  measure  of  the  impos¬ 
sibility  of  effecting  its  purpose,  and  of  the  inefficiency  of  the  refor¬ 
mation  which  had  been  so  elaborately  prepared  and  so  energetically 
promulgated  by  Louis  in  817.1 2 

But  perhaps  the  most  convincing  evidence  of  the  debased  morality 
of  the  clergy,  and  of  the  low  standard  which  even  the  most  zealous 
prelates  were  forced  to  adopt,  is  to  be  found  in  a  curious  fabrication 
by  the  authors  of  the  False  Decretals.  The  collection  of  decretals 
which  they  put  forth  in  the  names  of  the  early  popes  embodied  their 
conception  of  a  perfect  church  establishment,  as  adapted  to  the 
necessities  and  aspirations  of  the  ninth  century.  While  straining 
every  point  to  throw  off  all  subjection  to  the  temporal  power,  and  to 
obtain  for  the  hierarchy  full  and  absolute  control  over  all  ecclesias¬ 
tical  matters  and  persons,  they  seem  to  have  felt  it  necessary  to  relax 
in  an  important  point  the  rigor  of  the  canons  respecting  sacerdotal 
purity.  Gregory  the  Great  had  proclaimed  in  the  clearest  and  most 
definite  manner  the  rule  that  a  single  lapse  from  virtue  condemned 
the  sinner  to  irrevocable  degradation,  and  rendered  him  forever  unfit 
for  the  ministry  of  the  altar.3  Yet  “  Isidor  Mercator”  added  to  a 
genuine  epistle  of  Gregory  a  long  passage  elaborately  arguing  the 
necessity  of  forgiveness  for  those  who  expiate  by  repentance  the  sin 


1  Ludov.  Pii.  Capit.  Ingelenheim. 
c.  5. 

2  Capit.  Aquisgran.  ann.  817.  Cf. 

Mirsei  Cod.  Donat.  Piar.  c.  13. — This 
Capitulary  regulating  monastic  life 
was  generally  adopted  as  a  supple¬ 


ment  to  the  rule  of  Benedict  (Leo. 
Ostiens.  Chron.  Cassinens.  Lib.  I.  c. 
16). 

3  See  ante,  p.  123.  Cf.  Pseudo-Hor- 
misdae  Epist.  Encyc.  (Migne’s  Patrol 
T.  LXIII.  p.  527). 


INCREASING  CORRUPTION. 


\ 


137 

of  impurity,  “of  which,  among  many,  so  few  are  guiltless.”1  The 
direct  testimony  is  notable,  but  not  less  so  is  the  indirect  evidence  of 
the  prevalent  laxity  which  could  induce  such  a  bid  for  popularity  on 
the  part  of  high  churchmen  like  those  concerned  in  the  Isidorian 
forgeries. 

Evidence,  also,  is  not  wanting,  that  the  denial  of  the  appropriate 
and  healthful  human  affections  led  to  the  results  which  might  be 
expected  of  fearful  and  unnatural  crimes.  That  the  inmates  of 
monasteries,  debarred  from  female  society,  occasionally  abandoned 
themselves  to  the  worst  excesses,  or,  breaking  through  all  restraint, 
indulged  in  less  reprehensible  but  more  open  scandals,  is  proclaimed 
by  Charlemagne,  who  threatened  to  vindicate  the  outrage  upon 
religion  with  the  severest  punishment.2  Nor  were  the  female  con¬ 
vents  more  successfully  regulated,  for  the  council  of  Aix-la-Chapelle, 
in  836,  states  that  in  many  places  they  were  rather  brothels  than 
houses  of  God ;  and  it  shows  how  close  a  supervision  over  the  spouses 
of  Christ  was  thought  requisite  when  it  proceeds  to  direct  that  nun¬ 
neries  shall  be  so  built  as  to  have  no  dark  corners  in  which  scandals 
may  be  perpetrated  out  of  view.3  The  effect  of  these  efforts  may  be 
estimated  from  a  remark  in  a  collection  of  laws  which  bears  the 
name  of  Erchenbald,  Chancellor  of  Charlemagne,  but  which  is  rather 
attributable  to  the  close  of  the  ninth  century,  that  the  licentiousness 
of  nuns  commonly  resulted  in  a  worse  crime — infanticide  ; 4  and,  as 
this  is  extracted  textually  from  an  epistle  of  St.  Boniface  to  Ethel- 
bald,  King  of  Mercia,5  it  is  presumable  that  the  evil  became  notori¬ 
ous  simultaneously  with  the  reform  under  the  early  Carlovingians, 


1  Quid  enim  est  gravius  carnale  de¬ 
lictum  admittere  sine  quo  in  multis 
pauci  inveniuntur ,  an  Dei  filium  timen- 
do  negare  ?  in  quo  uno  ipsum  beatum 
Petrum  apostolorum  principem,  ad 
cujus  nunc  corpus  indigni  sedemus, 
lapsum  esse  cognoscimus,  sed  post  ne- 
gationem  pcenitentia  secuta,  et  post 
pcenitentiam  misericordia  data.  — 
Pseudo-Gregor.  Epist.  ad  Secundi- 
num. 

Isidor  Mercator  also  includes  two 
canons  from  the  sixth  century  forgery 
of  the  Roman  Council  said  to  have  been 
held  under  Silvester  I.  (see  p.  122). 
Of  these,  one  prohibits  bishops  from 
celebrating  the  marriage  of  nuns  under 
seventy  years  of  age ;  the  other  forbids 
priests  from  marrying,  under  a  penalty 


of  ten  year’s  suspension,  with  a  threat  of 
perpetual  deprivation  for  contumacy. 
(Constit.  Pseudo-Silvestri  cap.  x.  xix.) 
The  adoption  of  these  in  the  False 
Decretals  would  seem  at  least  to  be 
superfluous. 

2  Capit.  Carol.  Mag.  I.  ann.  802  c.  17. 

3  Concil.  Aquisgran.  ann.  836,  de  vit. 
et  doc.  infer,  ordin.  can.  xii.,  xiv. — De 
monasteriis  puellarum  quae  in  quibus- 
dam  locis  lupanaria  potius  videntur  esse 
quam  monasteria. 

4  Capitul.  add.  iv.  cap.  clx.  (Baluze, 
I.  1227). 

5  Bonifacii  Epist.  19. 


138 


THE  CARLOYINGIANS. 


and  continued  unabated  throughout  their  dynasty.  One  device  to 
subjugate  nature,  adopted  in  the  monasteries,  was  to  let  blood  at 
stated  intervals,  in  the  hope  of  reducing  the  system  and  thus  miti¬ 
gating  the  effects  of  prolonged  continence — a  device  prohibited  by 
Louis-1  e-Debonnaire,  but  long  subsequently  maintained  as  part  of 
monastic  discipline.1  As  regards  the  secular  clergy,  even  darker 
horrors  are  asserted  by  Theodulf,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  and  other  pre¬ 
lates,  who  forbade  to  their  clergy  the  residence  of  mother,  aunt,  and 
sister,  in  consequence  of  the  crimes  so  frequently  perpetrated  with 
them  at  the  instigation  of  the  devil ; 2  and  the  truth  of  this  hideous 
fact  is  unfortunately  confirmed  by  the  declarations  of  councils  held 
at  various  periods.3 

If,  under  the  external  polish  of  Carlovingian  civilization,  such 
utter  demoralization  existed,  while  the  laws  were  enforced  by  the 
stern  vigor  of  Charlemagne,  or  the  sensitive  piety  of  Louis-le- 
Debonnaire,  it  is  easy  to  understand  what  was  the  condition  of 


1  Capit.  Aquisgran.  ann.  817,  c.  xi. — 
Chavard,  Celibat  des  Pretres,  Geneve, 
1874,  p.  35. 

2  Quia,  instigante  diabolo,  etiam  in 
illis  scelus  frequenter  perpetratum  in- 
venitur,  aut  etiam  in  pedissequis 
earum.  Nee  igitur  matrem,  neque 
amitam,  neque  sororem  permittimus 
ultra  habitare  in  domo  una  cum  sa- 
cerdote. — Theodulf.  Aurelian.  Capit. 
Secund.  (Baluz.  et  Mansi  II.  99.) 

He  had  previously  (Epist.  c.  12) 
promulgated  the  prohibition,  assign¬ 
ing  for  it  the  more  decent  reason, 
in  imitation  of  St.  Augustin,  of  the 
danger  arising  from  female  attendants. 
In  this  he  was  imitated,  about  850,  by 
Rodolf  of  Bourges  (Capit.  Rodulf. 
Bituricens.  c.  1G),  and  about  871  by 
Walter  of  Orleans  (Capit.  Walteri 
Aurelian.  c.  3). 

In  889,  however,  Riculfus  of  Sois- 
sons  declares  the  lamentable  truth 
without  reserve:  “Nos  vero  etiam  a 
matribus,  amitis,  sororibus  vel  pro-  | 
pinquis  cavendum  dicimus,  ne  forte 
illu  d  eveniat  quod  in  sancta  scriptura 
legitur  de  Thamar  sorore  Absalon  .  .  . 
de  Loth  etiam  .  .  .  Quod  si  aliquis  • 
vestrum  matrem,  sororem  vel  amitam 
ad  convescendum  voeaverit,  expleto 
convivio  ad  domos  suas  vel  ad  hospitia  i 
a  domo  presbyteri  remota,  cum  luce 
diei  eas  faciat  remeare ;  periculosum 


quippe  est  ut  vobiscum  habitent.” — 
Riculfi  Suess.  Const,  c.  14. 

3  Thus  the  council  of  Mainz  in  888 
— “Quod  multum  dolendum  est,  ssepe 
audivimus  per  illam  concessionem  plu- 
rima  scelera  esse  commissa,  ita  ut  qui- 
dam  sacerdotum,  cum  propriis  sororibus 
concumbentes,  filios  ex  eis  generassent, 
et  idcirco  constituit  hsec  sancta  sy nodus, 
ut  nullus  presbyter  ullam  feminam  se¬ 
cure  in  domo  propria  permittat  qua- 
tenus  occasio  malae  suspicionis  vel 
facti  iniqui  penitus  auferatur”  (Con- 
cil.  Mogunt.  ann.  888  c.  10).  In  the 
same  year  the  third  canon  of  the 
council  of  Metz  repeats  the  prohibi¬ 
tion  ;  while  in  895  the  council  of 
Nantes  declares  —  “  Sed  neque  illas 
quas  canones  concedunt ;  quia  insti¬ 
gante  diabolo,  etiam  in  illis  scelus  fre¬ 
quenter  perpetratum  reperitur,  aut 
etiam  in  pedissequis  illarum,  scilicet 
matrem,  amitam,  sororem.” — Concil. 
Namnetens.  ann.  895  c.  3. 

It  is  true  that  some  authorities, 
including  the  great  name  of  Pagi,  at¬ 
tribute  to  this  council  of  Nantes  the 
date  of  6G0,  but  this  is  unimportant 
as  regards  the  canon  in  question,  for 
its  necessity  during  the  period  under 
consideration  is  shown  by  its  inser¬ 
tion  in  the  Capitularies  of  Benedict 
the  Levite  (Lib.  vn.  c.  376),  and  in 
the  collection  of  Regino  of  Pruhm 
(Lib.  i.  c.  104). 


CAUSES  OF  DEMORALIZATION. 


139 


society  when  the  sons  of  the  latter  involved  the  whole  empire  in  a 
ceaseless  tumult  of  civil  war.  Not  only  was  the  watchful  care  of 
the  first  two  emperors  withdrawn,  but  the  state  was  turned  against 
itself,  and  rapine  and  desolation  became  almost  universal.  The 
royal  power  was  parcelled  out,  by  the  rising  feudal  system,  among  a 
crowd  of  nobles  whose  energies  were  solely  directed  to  consolidating 
their  position,  and  was  chiefly  employed,  as  far  as  it  affected  the 
church,  in  granting  abbeys  and  other  ecclesiastical  dignities  to  worth¬ 
less  laymen,  whose  support  could  only  be  secured  by  bribes  which 
the  royal  fisc  could  no  longer  supply.  Pagan  Danes  and  infidel 
Saracens  were  ravaging  the  fairest  provinces  of  the  empire,  and  their 
blows  fell  with  peculiar  weight  on  the  representatives  of  a  hated 
religion.  For  seventy  years  previous  to  the  treaty  of  Clair-sur-Epte 
no  mass  resounded  in  the  walls  of  the  cathedral  church  of  Coutances, 
so  fierce  and  unremitting  had  been  the  incursions  of  the  Northmen. 
It  is  therefore  no  wonder  that,  as  early  as  845,  the  bishops  assembled 
at  the  council  of  Vernon  confess  that  their  ecclesiastical  authority  is 
no  longer  sufficient  to  prevent  the  marriage  of  monks  and  nuns  and 
to  suppress  the  crowds  who  escaped  from  their  convents  and  wan¬ 
dered  over  the  country  in  licentiousness  and  vagabondage.  To 
restrain  these  disorders  they  are  obliged  to  invoke  the  royal  power 
to  cast  into  prison  these  reprobates  and  force  them  to  undergo 
canonical  penance.1 

During  this  period  of  anarchy  and  lawlessness,  the  church  was 
skilfully  emancipating  itself  from  subjection  to  the  temporal  power, 
and  was  laying  the  foundation  of  that  supremacy  which  was  eventu¬ 
ally  to  dominate  Christendom.  While  its  aspirations  and  ambitions 
were  thus  worldly,  and  its  ranks  were  recruited  from  a  generation 
trained  under  such  influences,  it  is  easy  to  believe  that  the  disorders 
which  Charlemagne  himself  could  not  repress,  grew  more  and  more 
flagrant.  Even  the  greatly  augmented  power  of  the  papacy  added 
to  the  increasing  license,  although  Nicholas  I.  in  861  had  ordered 
the  deposition  and  degradation  of  all  priests  convicted  of  immorality,2 
for  the  appellate  jurisdiction  claimed  by  Rome  gave  practical  immu¬ 
nity  to  those  against  whom  the  enforcement  of  the  canons  was 
attempted.  About  the  year  876,  Charles-le-Chauve,  in  a  spirited 
argument  against  the  pretensions  of  the  popes,  calls  attention  specially 


1  Capit.  Carol.  Calvi  Tit  in.  cap.  4,  5. 

2  Martene  Ampliss.  Collect.  I.  151. 


140 


THE  CARLOVINGIANS. 


to  the  exemption  thus  afforded  to  unchaste  priests,  who,  after  due 
conviction  by  their  bishops,  obtained  letters  from  Rome  overruling 
the  judgments ;  the  distance  and  dangers  of  the  journey  precluding 
the  local  authorities  from  supporting  their  verdicts  by  sending  com¬ 
missioners  and  witnesses  to  carry  on  a  second  trial  beyond  the  Alps.1 

This  shows  that  the  effort  to  enforce  purity  was  not  as  yet  aban¬ 
doned,  howrever  slender  may  have  been  the  success  in  eradicating  an 
evil  so  general  and  so  deeply  rooted.  The  nominal  punishment  for 
unchastity — loss  of  benefice  and  deposition — was  severe  enough  to 
induce  the  guilty  to  hide  their  excesses  with  care,  when  they  chanced 
to  have  a  bishop  who  was  zealous  in  the  performance  of  his  duties. 
Efforts  at  concealment,  moreover,  were  favored  by  the  forms  of 
iudicial  procedure,  wdiich  were  such  as  to  throw  every  difficulty  in 
the  way  of  procuring  a  conviction,  and  to  afford,  in  most  cases, 
practical  immunity  for  sin,  unless  committed  in  the  most  open  and 
shameless  manner.  Hincmar,  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  the  leading 
ecclesiastic  of  his  day,  whose  reputation  for  learning  and  piety  would 
have  rendered  him  one  of  the  lights  of  the  church,  had  not  his  con¬ 
sistent  opposition  to  the  innovations  of  the  papacy  caused  his  sanc¬ 
tity  to  be  questioned  in  Rome,  has  left  us  elaborate  directions  as  to 
the  forms  of  prosecution  in  such  matters.  Notwithstanding  his 
earnest  exhortations  and  arguments  in  favor  of  the  most  ascetic 
purity,  he  discourages  investigation  by  means  of  neighbors  and 
parishioners,  or  irreverent  inquiries  on  the  subject.  Only  such 
testimony  was  admissible  as  the  laws  allowed,  and  the  laws  were 
very  strict  as  to  the  position  and  character  of  witnesses.  In  addi¬ 
tion  to  the  accusers  themselves,  seven  witnesses  were  necessary.  Of 
these,  one  was  required  to  substantiate  the  oaths  of  the  rest  by  under¬ 
going  the  ordeal,  thus  exposing  himself  and  all  his  fellows  to  the 
heavy  penalties  visited  on  perjury,  upon  the  chance  of  the  red-hot 
iron  or  cold-water  trial,  administered,  perhaps,  by  those  interested 
in  shielding  the  guilty.  If,  as  we  can  readily  believe  was  generally 
the  case,  these  formidable  difficulties  could  not  be  overcome,  and  the 
necessary  number  of  witnesses  were  not  ready  to  sacrifice  themselves, 
then  the  accused  could  purge  himself  of  the  sins  imputed  to  him  by 
his  own  oath,  supported  by  one,  three,  or  six  compurgators  of  his 
own  order ;  and  Hincmar  himself  bears  testimony  to  the  associations 
which  were  formed  among  the  clergy  to  swear  each  other  through  all 


1  Hincmari  Epist.  xxxn.  c.  20. 


INDIFFERENCE  TO  THE  CANONS. 


141 


troubles.1  Even  simpler,  indeed,  was  the  process  prescribed  not 
long  before  by  Pope  Nicholas  I.,  who  ordered  that  when  legal  evi¬ 
dence  was  not  procurable,  the  accused  priest  could  clear  himself  on 
his  own  unsupported  oath.2 

Under  these  regulations,  Hincmar  orders  an  annual  investigation 
to  be  made  throughout  his  province,  but  the  results  would  appear  to 
have  been  as  unsatisfactory  as  might  have  been  expected.  In  8T4, 
at  the  Synod  of  Rheims,  he  complains  that  his  orders  have  been 
neglected  and  despised,  and  he  warns  his  clergy  that  proof  of  actual 
criminality  will  not  be  required,  but  that  undue  familiarity  with 
women,  if  persisted  in,  will  be  sufficient  for  condemnation  when 
properly  proved.3 

In  the  presence  of  facilities  for  escape  such  as  were  afforded  by 
the  practice  of  ecclesiastical  law  as  constructed  by  the  decretalists, 
and  as  expounded  by  Hincmar  himself,  the  threats  in  which  he 
indulged  could  carry  but  little  terror.  We  need  not  wonder,  there¬ 
fore,  if  we  meet  with  but  slender  indications  of  priestly  marriage 
during  all  this  disorder,  for  there  was  evidently  little  danger  of 
punishment  for  the  unchaste  priest  who  exercised  ordinary  discretion 
in  his  amours,  while  the  penalties  impending  over  those  who  should 
openly  brave  the  canonical  rules  were  heavy,  and  could  hardly  be 
avoided  by  any  one  who  should  dare  to  unite  himself  publicly  to  a 
woman  in  marriage.  Every  consideration  of  worldly  prudence  and 
passion  therefore  induced  the  priest  to  pursue  a  course  of  illicit 
licentiousness — and  yet,  as  the  century  wore  on,  traces  of  entire 
neglect  or  utter  contempt  of  the  canons  began  to  manifest  them¬ 
selves.  How  little  the  rule  really  was  respected  by  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  when  anything  was  to  be  gained  by  its  suppression,  is 
shown  in  the  decision  made  by  Nicholas  I.,  the  highest  of  high 
churchmen,  when  encouraging  the  Bulgarians  to  abandon  the  Greek 
church,  although  the  separation  between  Rome  and  Constantinople 
was  not,  as  yet,  formal  and  complete.  To  their  inquiry  whether 


1  Hincmari  Capit.  Presbyteris  data, 
cap.  xxi. -xxv. 

Hincmar  repeats  bis  instructions, 
with  some  amplifications,  in  another 
document,  in  which  he  declares  them 
to  be  the  received  traditional  rules — 
“a  majoribus  nostris  accepimus”  (De 
Presbyt.  criminos.  c.  xi.-xvm.).  That 
they  were  generally  practised  is  shown 
in  their  almost  literal  repetition  by 


the  council  of  Trosley  in  909 — with 
the  exception  that  in  some  cases  four¬ 
teen  or  twenty-one  witnesses  were  re¬ 
quired  for  conviction  (Concil.  Tros- 
lei.  c.  ix.). 

2  Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  I.  151. 

3  Capit.  Synod.  Remens.  ann.  874 
c.  3. 


142 


THE  CARLOVINGIANS. 


married  priests  should  be  ejected,  he  replied  that  though  such  min¬ 
isters  were  objectionable,  yet  the  mercy  of  God  was  to  he  imitated, 
who  causes  his  sun  to  shine  on  good  and  evil  alike,  and  as  Christ 
did  not  dismiss  Judas,  so  they  were  not  to  be  dismissed.  Besides, 
laymen  were  not  to  judge  priests  for  any  crime,  nor  to  make  any 
investigation  into  their  lives,  such  inquiries  being  reserved  for  bishops.1 
As  no  bishops  had  yet  been  appointed  by  Rome,  the  answer  was  a 
skilfully  tacit  permission  of  priestly  marriage,  while  avoiding  an 
open  avowal. 

It  need  awaken  no  surprise  if  those  who  united  recklessness  and 
power  should  openly  trample  on  the  canons  thus  feebly  supported. 
A  somewhat  prominent  personage  of  the  period  was  Hubert,  brother 
of  Teutberga,  Queen  of  Lotharingia,  and  his  turbulent  conduct  was 
a  favorite  theme  for  animadversion  by  the  quiet  monastic  chroniclers. 
That  he  wTas  an  abbot  is  perhaps  no  proof  of  his  clerical  profession, 
but  when  wTe  find  his  wife  and  children  alluded  to  as  a  proof  of  his 
abandoned  character,  it  shows  that  he  was  bound  by  vows  or  ordained 
within  the  prohibited  grades,  and  that  he  publicly  violated  the  rules 
and  defied  their  enforcement.2 

The  earliest  absolute  evidence  that  has  reached  us,  however,  of 
marriage  committed  by  a  member  of  the  great  body  of  the  plebian 
clergy,  subsequent  to  the  reforms  of  Boniface,  occurs  about  the  year 
893.  Angelric  priest  of  Vasnau  appealed  to  the  synod  of  Chalons, 
stating  that  he  had  been  publicly  joined  in  wedlock  to  a  woman 
named  Grimma.  Such  an  attempt  by  a  priest,  the  consent  of  the 
woman  and  her  relatives,  and  the  performance  of  the  ceremony  by 
another  priest  all  show  the  prevailing  laxity  and  ignorance,  yet  still 
there  were  found  some  faithful  and  pious  souls  to  object  to  the  trans¬ 
action,  and  Angelric  was  not  allowed  to  enjoy  undisturbed  the  fruits 
of  his  sin.  Yet  even  the  synod  was  perplexed,  and  unable  to  decide 
what  ought  to  be  done.  It  therefore  only  temporarily  suspended 
Angelric  from  communion,  while  Mancio,  his  bishop,  applied  for 
advice  to  Foulques  of  Rheims,  metropolitan  of  the  province,  and  the 
ignorance  and  good  faith  of  all  parties  are  manifested  by  the  fact 
that  Angelric  himself  was  sent  to  Foulques  as  the  bearer  of  the  letter 
of  inquiry.3 


1  Nicholai  I.  Respons.  ad  Consult. 
Bulgar.  c.  70. 

2  Efficitur  ad  liaec  uxorius,  liberos 

procreans,  et  ad  swe  damnationis  cu- 
mulum  nil  sibi  clericale  prater  ton- 


suram  praferens. — Folcuin.  de  Gest. 
Abbat.  Laubiens.  c.  12. 

3  Mantion.  Episc.  Catalaun.  Epist. 
ad  Fulc.  Remens.  (Migne’s  Patrol.  T. 
131,  p.  23.) 


DECLINE  OF  CIVILIZATION. 


143 


With  the  ninth  century  the  power,  the  cultivation,  and  the  civili¬ 
zation  of  the  Carlovingians  may  he  considered  virtually  to  disappear, 
though  for  nearly  a  hundred  years  longer  a  spectral  crown  encircled 
the  brows  of  the  ill-starred  descendants  of  Pepin.  Centralization, 
rendered  impossible  in  temporal  affairs  by  feudalism,  was  transferred 
to  the  church,  which,  thenceforth,  more  than  ever  independent  of 
secular  control,  became  wholly  responsible  for  its  own  shortcomings ; 
and  the  records  of  the  period  make  only  too  plainly  manifest  how 
utterly  the  power,  so  strenuously  contended  for,  failed  to  overcome 
the  ignorance  and  the  barbarism  of  the  age. 


X. 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


The  tenth  century,  well  characterized  by  Cave  as  the  “  Speculum 
Obscurum,"  is  perhaps  the  most  repulsive  in  Christian  annals.  The 
last  vestiges  of  Roman  culture  have  disappeared,  while  the  dawn  of 
modern  civilization  is  as  yet  far  off.  Society,  in  a  state  of  transition, 
is  painfully  and  vainly  seeking  some  form  of  security  and  stability. 
The  marauding  wars  of  petty  neighboring  chiefs  become  the  normal 
condition,  only  interrupted  when  two  or  three  unite  to  carry  destruc¬ 
tion  to  some  more  powerful  rival.  Though  the  settlement  of  Nor¬ 
mandy  relieved  Continental  Europe  to  a  great  extent  from  the  terror 
of  the  Dane,  yet  the  still  more  dreaded  Hun  took  his  place  and 
ravaged  the  nations  from  the  Danube  to  the  Atlantic,  while  England 
bore  the  undivided  fury  of  the  Vikings,  and  the  Saracen  left  little  to 
glean  upon  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean. 

When  brutal  ignorance  and  savage  ferocity  were  the  distinguishing 
characteristics  of  the  age,  the  church  could  scarce  expect  to  escape 
from  the  general  debasement.  It  is  rather  a  matter  of  grateful  sur¬ 
prise  that  religion  itself  was  not  overwhelmed  in  the  general  chaos 
which  engulfed  almost  all  previously  existing  institutions.  When 
the  crown  of  St.  Peter  became  the  sport  of  barbarous  nobles,  or  of  a 
still  more  barbarous  populace,  we  may  grieve,  hut  we  cannot  affect 
astonishment  at  the  unconcealed  dissoluteness  of  Sergius  III.,  whose 
bastard,  twenty  years  later,  was  placed  in  the  pontifical  chair  by  the 
influence  of  that  embodiment  of  all  possible  vices,  his  mother  Ma- 
rozia.1  The  last  extreme  of  depravity  would  seem  attained  by  John 
XII.,  but  as  his  deposition  in  963  by  Otho  the  Great  loosened  the 
tongues  of  his  accusers,  it  is  possible  that  he  was  no  worse  than  some 
of  his  predecessors.  No  extreme  of  wickedness  was  beyond  his 
capacity ;  the  sacred  palace  of  the  Lateran  was  turned  into  a  brothel ; 


1  Liutprand.  Antapod.  Lib.  in.  c.  43. 


TENDENCY  TO  HEREDITARY  BENEFICES.  145 


incest  gave  a  flavor  to  crime  when  simple  profligacy  palled  upon  his 
exhausted  senses,  and  the  honest  citizens  of  Rome  complained  that 
the  female  pilgrims  who  formerly  crowded  the  holy  fanes  were 
deterred  from  coming  through  fear  of  his  promiscuous  and  unbridled 
lust.1 

With  such  corruption  at  the  head  of  the  church,  it  is  lamentably 
ludicrous  to  see  the  popes  inculcating  lessons  of  purity,  and  urging 
the  maintenance  of  canons  which  they  set  the  example  of  disregard¬ 
ing  so  utterly.  The  clergy  were  now  beginning  to  arrogate  to  them¬ 
selves  the  privilege  of  matrimony;  and  marriage,  so  powerful  a 
corrective  of  indiscriminate  vice,  was  regarded  with  peculiar  detesta¬ 
tion  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  awoke  a  far  more  energetic 
opposition  than  the  more  dangerous  and  corrupting  forms  of  illicit 
indulgence.  The  pastor  who  intrigued  in  secret  with  his  penitents 
and  parishioners  was  scattering  the  seeds  of  death  in  place  of  the 
bread  of  life,  and  was  abusing  his  holy  trust  to  destroy  the  souls 
confided  to  his  charge,  but  this  worked  no  damage  to  the  temporal 
interests  of  the  church  at  large.  The  priest  who,  in  honest  ignorance 
of  the  canons,  took  to  himself  a  wife,  and  endeavored  faithfully  to 
perform  the  duties  of  his  humble  sphere,  could  scarcely  avoid  seeking 
the  comfort  and  worldly  welfare  of  his  offspring,  and  this  exposed 
the  common  property  of  all  to  dilapidation  and  embezzlement.  Dis¬ 
interested  virtue  perhaps  would  not  be  long  in  making  a  selection 
between  the  comparative  evils,  but  disinterested  virtue  was  not  a 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  age. 

Yet  a  motive  of  even  greater  importance  than  this  rendered 
matrimony  more  objectionable  than  concubinage  or  licentiousness. 
By  the  overruling  tendency  of  the  age,  all  possessions  previously 
held  by  laymen  on  precarious  tenure  were  rapidly  becoming  heredi¬ 
tary.  As  the  royal  power  slipped  from  hands  unable  to  retain  it, 
offices,  dignities,  and  lands  became  the  property  of  the  holders,  and 
were  transmitted  from  father  to  son.  Had  marriage  been  openly 
permitted  to  ecclesiastics,  their  functions  and  benefices  would  un¬ 
doubtedly  have  followed  the  example.  An  hereditary  caste  would 
have  been  established,  who  would  have  held  their  churches  and  lands 
of  right;  independent  of  the  central  authority,  all  unity  would  have 
been  destroyed,  and  the  collective  power  of  the  church  would  have 
disappeared.  Having  nothing  to  gain  from  obedience,  submission  to 

1  Liutprand.  Hist.  Otton.  c.  4,  10. — Chron.  Benedict.  S.  Andreae  Monach.  c.  35. 

10 


146 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


control  would  have  become  the  exception,  and,  laymen  in  all  but 
name,  the  ecclesiastics  would  have  had  no  incentive  to  perform  their 
functions,  except  what  little  influence,  under  such  circumstances, 
might  have  been  retained  over  the  people  by  maintaining  the  sacred 
character  thus  rendered  a  mockery. 

In  an  age  when  everything  was  unsettled,  yet  with  tendencies  so 
strongly  marked,  it  thus  became  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  the 
church  to  prevent  anything  like  hereditary  occupation  of  benefices 
or  private  appropriation  of  property,  and  against  these  abuses  its 
strongest  efforts  were  directed.  The  struggle  lasted  for  centuries, 
and  it  is  indeed  most  fortunate  for  our  civilization  that  sacerdotalism 
triumphed,  even  at  the  expense  of  what  at  the  moment  may  appear 
of  greater  importance.  I  cannot  here  pause  to  trace  the  progress  of 
the  contest  in  its  long  and  various  vicissitudes.  It  will  be  found 
constantly  reappearing  in  the  course  of  the  following  pages,  and  for 
the  present  it  will  suffice  to  group  together  a  few  evidences  to  show 
how  rapidly  the  hereditary  tendency  developed  itself  in  the  period 
under  consideration. 

The  narrowness  of  the  escape  from  ecclesiastical  feudalization  is 
well  illustrated  by  an  incident  at  the  council  of  Tours,  in  925,  where 
two  priests,  father  and  son ,  Ranald  and  Raymond,  appeared  as  com¬ 
plainants,  claiming  certain  tithes  detained  from  them  by  another 
priest.  They  gained  the  suit,  and  the  tithes  were  confirmed  to  them 
and  their  successors  forever.1  Even  more  suggestive  is  the  com¬ 
plaint,  some  thirty  years  later,  of  Ratherius,  Bishop  of  Verona,  who 
objects  strenuously  to  the  ordination  of  the  children  sprung  from 
these  illegal  marriages,  as  each  successive  father  made  his  son  a 
priest,  thus  perpetuating  the  scandal  indefinitely  throughout  the 
church;  and  as  he  sorrowfully  admits  that  his  clergy  could  not  be 
restrained  from  marriage,  he  begs  them  at  least  to  bring  their  children 
up  as  laymen.2  This,  however,  by  his  own  showing,  would  not  re¬ 
move  the  material  evil,  for  in  another  treatise  he  states  that  ,  his 
priests  and  deacons  divided  the  church  property  between  them,  that 
they  might  have  lands  and  vineyards  wherewith  to  provide  marriage 
portions  for  their  sons  and  daughters.3  This  system  of  appropriation 
also  forms  the  subject  of  lamentation  for  Atto,  Bishop  of  Vercelli, 

1  Concil.  Turon.  ann.  925.  (Martene  Thesaur.  IV.  73.) 

2  Ratherii  de  nuptu  cujusdam  illicito  c.  4. 

3  Ratherii  de  contemptu  canon.  P.  i.  c.  4. 


DILAPIDATION  OF  CHURCH  PROPERTY. 


147 


whose  clergy  insisted  on  publicly  keeping  concubines — as  he  stigma¬ 
tizes  those  who  evidently  were  wives — to  whom  they  left  by  will 
everything  that  they  could  gather  from  the  possessions  of  the  church, 
from  the  alms  of  the  pious,  or  from  any  other  source,  to  the  ruin  of 
ecclesiastical  property  and  to  the  deprivation  of  the  poor.1  How 
well  founded  were  these  complaints  is  evident  from  a  document  of 
the  eleventh  century  concerning  the  churches  of  St.  Stephen  and 
St.  Donatus  in  Aretino.  The  priests  in  charge  appropriated  to 
themselves  all  the  possessions  of  the  churches,  including  the  reve¬ 
nues  of  the  altars,  the  oblations,  and  the  confessional.  These  they 
portioned  out  among  each  other  and  handed  down  from  father  to 
son  as  regularly  as  any  other  property,  selling  and  exchanging  their 
shares  as  the  interest  of  the  moment  might  suggest,  and  the  successive 
transmission  of  each  fragment  of  property  is  detailed  with  all  the 
precision  of  a  brief  of  title.  The  natural  result  was  that  for  gener¬ 
ations  the  religious  services  of  Aretino  were  utterly  disregarded. 
Sometimes  the  priestly  owners  would  hire  some  one  to  ring  the  bells, 
light  the  candles,  and  minister  to  the  altar,  but  in  the  multitude  of 
ownerships  the  stipends  were  irregularly  paid,  and  the  officiator 
refused  continually  to  serve,  candles  were  not  furnished,  bell-ropes 
were  not  renewed,  and  even  the  leathers  which  attached  the  clappers 
to  the  bells  were  neglected.  The  church  of  St.  Stephen  was  the 
cathedral  of  Aretino,  yet  the  bishops  were  powerless  to  correct  these 
abuses.  The  marriages  of  their  priests  they  do  not  seem  to  have 
even  attempted  to  repress,  and  were  quite  satisfied  if  they  could 
occasionally  get  a  portion  of  the  revenues  devoted  to  the  offices  of 
religion.2  The  same  condition  of  affairs  existed  among  the  Anglo- 
Saxons.  “It  is  all  the  worse  when  they  have  it  all,  for  they  do  not 
dispose  of  it  as  they  ought,  but  decorate  their  wives  with  what  they 
should  the  altars,  and  turn  everything  to  their  own  worldly  pomp.  .  . 
Let  those  who  before  this  had  the  evil  custom  of  decorating  their 
women  as  they  should  the  altars,  refrain  from  this  evil  custom,  and 
decorate  their  churches,  as  they  best  can ;  then  would  they  command 
for  themselves  both  divine  counsel  and  worldly  worship.  A  priest’s 
wife  is  nothing  but  a  snare  of  the  devil,  and  he  who  is  ensnared 
thereby  on  to  his  end,  he  will  be  seized  fast  by  the  devil.”3 


1  Atton.  Vercell.  Epist.  ix. 

2  Enarratio  eorum  quae  perverse  gesta 
sunt,  etc.  (Muratori,  Antiq.  Med.  iEvi 

Diss.  lxii. ). 


3  Institutes  of  Polity,  Civil  and  Ec¬ 
clesiastical,  c.  19,  23  (Thorpe,  Ancient 
Laws,  &c.  of  England,  II.  329,  337). 


148 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY.. 


It  will  be  observed  that,  as  the  century  advanced,  sacerdotal  mar¬ 
riage  became  more  and  more  common.  Indeed,  in  966,  Ratherius 
not  only  intimates  that  his  clergy  all  were  married,  but  declares  that 
if  the  canon  prohibiting  repeated  marriages  were  put  in  force,  only 
boys  would  be  left  in  the  church,  while  even  they  would  be  ejected 
under  the  rule  which  rendered  ineligible  the  offspring  of  illicit  unions ; 1 
and,  in  spite  of  his  earnest  asceticism,  he  only  ventures  to  prohibit 
his  clergy  from  conjugal  intercourse  during  the  periods  likewise  for¬ 
bidden  to  laymen,  such  as  Advent,  Christmas,  Lent,  etc.2  It  was 
not  that  the  ancient  canons  were  forgotten,3  nor  that  strenuous  efforts 
were  not  made  to  enforce  them,  but  that  the  temper  of  the  times 
created  a  spirit  of  personal  independence  so  complete  that  the  power 
of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  seemed  utterly  inadequate  to  control 
the  growing  license.  About  the  year  938,  Gerard,  Archbishop  of 
Lorsch  and  Papal  Legate  for  Southern  Germany,  laid  before  Leo 
VII.  a  series  of  questions  relating  to  various  points  in  which  the 
ancient  canons  were  set  at  naught  throughout  the  region  under  his 
supervision.  Leo  answered  by  a  decretal  addressed  to  all  the  princes 
and  potentates  of  Europe,  in  which  he  laments  over  Gerard’s  state¬ 
ment  of  the  public  marriages  of  priests,  and  replies  to  his  inquiry  as 
to  the  capacity  of  their  children  for  ecclesiastical  promotion.  The 
first  he  pronounces  forbidden  by  the  canons,  and  those  guilty  of  it 
he  orders  to  be  deprived  of  their  benefices.  As  for  the  offspring  of 
such  marriages,  however,  he  says  that  they  are  not  involved  in  the 
sins  of  their  parents.4 

The  unusual  liberality  of  this  latter  declaration,  however,  was  not 
a  precedent.  The  church  always  endeavored  to  prevent  the  ordina¬ 
tion  of  the  children  of  ecclesiastics,  and  Leo,  in  permitting  it,  was 
only  yielding  to  a  pressure  which  he  could  not  withstand.  It  was  a 
most  dangerous  concession,  for  it  led  directly  to  the  establishment  of 
the  hereditary  principle.  An  effort  was  soon  after  made,  by  an 
appeal  to  the  temporal  power,  to  recover  the  ground  lost,  and  about 
the  year  940  Otho  the  Great  was  induced  to  issue  an  edict  prohibit¬ 
ing  the  sons  of  deacons,  priests,  and  bishops  from  occupying  the 


1  Ratherii  Itinerar.  c.  5. 

2  Ratherii  Synodica  c.  15. 

3  Gunzo  the  Grammarian,  in  his 
learned  treatise,  makes  use  of  the  recog¬ 

nized  celibacy  of  the  clergy  as  a  com¬ 


parison.  “Non  enim  una  eademque 
res  bona,  licet  aeque  omnibus  conceditur. 
Siquidem  nuptiae,  laicis  concessse,  sacris 
ordinibus  denegantur.”  —  Gunzonis 
Epist.  ad  Augienses. 

4  Leon.  PP.  VII.  Epist.  15. 


PREVALENCE  OF  SACERDOTAL  MARRIAGE.  149 


positions  of  notary,  judge,  or  count1 — the  bare  necessity  of  which 
shows  how  numerous  and  powerful  the  class  had  already  become. 


Although,  as  early  as  925,  the  council  of  Spalatro  seemed  to  find 
nothing  to  condemn  in  a  single  marriage,  but  threatened  excommuni¬ 
cation  against  those  who  so  far  forgot  themselves  as  to  contract  a 
second,2  and  though  by  the  middle  of  the  century  the  practice  had 
become  generally  established,  yet  some  rigid  prelates  continued  to 
keep  alive  the  memory  of  the  ancient  canons  by  fruitless  protests 
and  ineffectual  efforts  at  reform.  In  948,  the  synod  of  Engelheim, 
under  the  presidency  of  Marino,  Bishop  of  Ostia  and  Papal  Vicar, 
condemned  such  marriages  as  incestuous  and  unlawful.3  In  952,  at 
the  council  of  Augsburg,  the  assembled  German  and  Italian  prelates 
made  a  further  and  more  desperate  effort.  Deposition  was  pro¬ 
nounced  against  the  subdeacon,  deacon,  priest,  or  bishop  who  should 
take  to  himself  a  wife;  separation  of  those  already  married  was 
ordered,  and  even  the  lower  grades  of  the  clergy,  who  had  not  pre¬ 
viously  been  subjected  to  any  such  rule,  were  commanded  to  observe 
the  strictest  continence.  An  attempt  was  also  made  to  prevent  con¬ 
cubinage  by  visiting  suspected  women  with  stripes  and  shaving;  but 
there  evidently  was  some  difficulty  anticipated  in  enforcing  this,  for 
the  royal  power  is  invoked  to  prevent  secular  interference  with  the 
sentence.4 

This  stringent  legislation  of  course  proved  utterly  nugatory,  but, 
futile  as  it  was,  it  yet  awakened  considerable  opposition.  St.  Ulric, 
in  whose  episcopal  town  of  Augsburg  the  council  was  held,  addressed 
a  long  epistle  to  the  Pope,  remonstrating  against  his  efforts  to  enforce 
the  rule  of  celibacy,  and  arguing  the  question,  temperately  but 
forcibly,  on  the  grounds  both  of  scriptural  authority  and  of  expediency. 
He  pointed  out  how  much  more  obnoxious  to  Divine  wrath  were  the 
promiscuous  and  nameless  crimes  indulged  in  by  those  who  were 
foremost  in  advocating  the  reform,  than  the  chaste  and  single  mar- 


1  Constit.  Otton.  ann.  940,  c.  12. 

2  Quod  si  sacerdotes  incontinenter 
propter  ipsam  conti nentiam  primam 
quam  sortitus  est,  separati  a  consortio 
cellse,  teneat  uxorem ;  si  vere  aliam 
duxerit,  excommunicetur.  —  Concil. 
Spalatens.  ann.  925  c.  15. 

The  passage  is  evidently  corrupt,  but 
its  intention  is  manifest.  The  reading 
suggested  by  Batthyani  may  be  reason¬ 
ably  accepted.  “Quod  si  sacerdotes  in- 

continentes  propter  ipsam  continentiam 


quam  quis  primam  sortitus  est,  separati 
a  consortio  cellse,  teneant  uxorem,  toler- 
antur;  si  vero  aliam  duxerint,  excom- 
municentur.”  (Batthyani  Legg.  Eccles. 
Hungar.  I.  333-4.) 

3  Richeri  Hist.  Lib.  II.  c.  81.  The 
canons  of  the  council,  however,  as  they 
have  reached  us,  are  silent  on  the  sub¬ 
ject. 

4  Concil.  Augustan,  ann.  952  c.  1, 
4,  11. 


150 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


riages  of  the  clergy ;  and  the  violent  distortion  of  the  sacred  texts, 
by  those  who  sought  authority  to  justify  the  canon,  he  not  unhappily 
characterized  as  straining  the  breast  of  Scripture  until  it  yielded 
blood  in  place  of  milk.1 

Despite  the  inefficiency  of  these  attempts,  the  clergy  were  not 
always  allowed  to  enjoy  their  unlawful  domestic  ties  in  peace,  and, 
wffiere  the  votaries  of  asceticism  were  bold  and  determined,  the  con¬ 
test  was  sometimes  severe.  The  nature  of  the  struggle  is  well  illus¬ 
trated  by  the  troubles  which  arose  between  Ratherius  of  Verona  and 
the  ecclesiastics  of  his  diocese.  In  April,  967,  John  XIII.  held  a 
council  at  Ravenna  which  commanded  those  who  were  in  holy  orders 
to  give  up  at  once  either  their  wives  or  their  ministry,  and  Otho  the 
Great  was  induced  to  issue  a  precept  confirming  this  peremptory 
decree.  Ratherius  had  long  been  vainly  wishing  for  some  authority 
on  the  subject  more  potent  than  the  ancient  and  now  obsolete  canons, 
and  on  his  return  from  Ravenna  he  summoned  a  synod  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  promulgating  the  new  regulations.  His  clergy  got  wind  of 
his  intention ;  very  few  of  them  obeyed  the  summons,  and  most  of 
those  who  came  boldly  declared  that  they  would  neither  be  separated 
from  their  wives  nor  abandon  their  functions ;  in  fact,  they  did  not 
scruple  to  maintain  that  marriage  was  not  only  permissible,  but  even 
necessary  to  protect  the  church  from  the  most  hideous  vices.  The 
utmost  concession  he  could  obtain,  indeed,  came  from  a  few’  wffio 
endeavored  to  excuse  themselves  on  the  ground  of  poverty,  which 
did  not  enable  them  to  live  without  the  assistance  of  their  wives,  and 
who  professed  to  be  willing  to  separate  from  them  if  they  could  be 
assured  of  a  regular  stipend.2  Ratherius  had  passed  through  too 
many  vicissitudes  in  his  long  and  agitated  career  to  shrink  from  the 

1  Cod.  Bamberg.  Lib.  n.  Epist.  10.  ninth  and  Nicholas  II.  in  the  eleventh 

St.  Ulric  is  noteworthy  as  the  first  century,  it  has  been  suggested  that  the 
subject  of  papal  canonization,  having  epistle  was  addressed  to  the  latter,  on 
been  enrolled  in  the  calendar  by  the  the  occasion  of  his  reforms  in  1059, 
council  of  Rome  in  993.  That  priestly  the  use  of  St.  Ulric’s  name  being  as- 
marriage  should  be  advocated  by  so  sumed  as  a  mistake  of  the  compiler, 
pious  and  venerable  a  father  was  of  That  this  is  not  so  is  shown  by  the 
course  not  agreeable  to  the  sacerdotal  fact  that  already  in  1079  it  was  known 
party,  and  his  evidence  against  celi-  as  St.  Ulric’s,  being  condemned  as 
bacy  has  not  infrequently  been  ruled  such  in  that  year  by  Gregory  VII. — 
out  of  court  by  discrediting  the  au-  “  scriptum  quod  dicitur  sancti  Oudal- 
thenticity  of  the  epistle.  The  compiler  rici  ad  papam  Nicholaum,  de  nuptiis 
of  the  collection  containing  it,  made  presbiterorum”  iBernald.  Constant, 
in  1125,  prefixed  the  name  of  Nicholas  Chron.  ann.  1079).  The  authenticity 
as  that  of  the  pope  to  whom  it  was  of  the  document,  1  believe,  is  generally 
addressed,  and  as  St.  Ulric  was  about  j  admitted  by  unprejudiced  critics, 
equidistant  between  Nicholas  I.  in  the  '  ,  Eathcrii  Biscordia  c.  1,  C. 


RESISTANCE  OF  THE  CLERGY. 


151 


collision,  now  that  he  was  backed  by  both  the  papal  and  imperial 
authority.  He  promptly  threw  the  recalcitrant  pastors  into  prison, 
declaring  that  they  should  lie  there  until  they  paid  a  heavy  fine  for 
the  benefit  of  the  cathedral  of  the  Virgin,  and  he  further  commanded 
the  presence  of  those  who  had  failed  to  appear.  The  clergy  of  the 
diocese,  finding  that  the  resistance  of  inertia  was  unavailing,  took 
more  decided  steps,  and  appealed  for  protection  to  the  temporal 
powder,  in  the  person  of  Nanno,  Count  of  Verona.  He  promptly 
espoused  their  cause,  and  his  missus  Gilbert  forbade  their  obedience 
to  the  summons  of  their  bishop  for  a  year.  Ratherius  remonstrated 
vehemently  against  the  assumption  of  Nanno  that  the  priests  were 
his  vassals,  subject  to  his  jurisdiction,  and  entitled  to  protection,  and 
he  lost  no  time  in  invoking  the  power  of  Otho,  in  a  letter  to  Am¬ 
brose,  the  Imperial  Chancellor.1  The  clergy  were  too  powerful ; 
the  imperial  court  decided  against  the  bishop,  and  before  the  end  of 
the  year  Ratherius  was  forced  to  retire  from  the  unequal  contest  and 
to  take  refuge  in  the  peaceful  abbey  of  Lobbes,  whence  he  had  been 
withdrawn  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  to  fill  the  see  of  Verona. 
Three  times  had  he  thus  been  driven  from  that  city,  and  an  inter¬ 
mediate  episcopate  of  Liege,  with  which  one  of  his  periods  of  exile 
was  gratified,  had  been  terminated  in  the  same  abrupt  manner  by  the 
unruly  clergy,  unable  to  endure  the  severity  of  his  virtue.2  How 
great  was  the  revolution,  to  the  unavailing  repression  of  which  he 
sacrificed  his  life,  is  shown  by  his  declaration,  two  years  before,  that 
ecclesiastics  differed  from  laymen  only  in  shaving  and  the  tonsure, 
in  some  slight  fashioning  of  their  garments,  and  in  the  careless 
performance  of  the  church  ritual.  The  progress  of  sacerdotal  mar¬ 
riage  during  the  preceding  quarter  of  a  century  is  shown  by  a  similar 
comparison  drawn  by  Ratherius  some  thirty  years  before,  in  which 
matrimony  is  included  among  the  few  points  of  difference,  along  with 
shaving  and  the  tonsure.3 


1  Ratherii  Epist.  xi.,  xii. — His  letter 
to  the  Empress  Adelaide,  announcing 
his  willingness  to  retire  from  the  con¬ 
test,  and  to  seek  the  congenial  shades 
of  a  monastery,  is  most  uncourtly. 
(Epist.  xiii.) 

2  Ruotgeri  Vit.  S.  Brunonis  c.  38. — 
Ratherius  consoled  himself  epigram- 
matically  by  condensing  his  misfor¬ 
tunes  in  the  Leonine  verse — “Veronse 
prsesul,  sed  ter  Ratherius  exsul.” 


3  He  Contempt.  Canon.  P.  n.  c.  2. — 
Prseloquiorum  Lib.  v.  c.  18. 

The  existing  confusion  is  well  ex¬ 
emplified  by  another  remark — “  Exper- 
tus  sum  talem  qui  ante  ordinationem 
adulterium  perpetravit,  postea  quasi 
continenter  vixit ;  alterum  qui  post 
ordinationem  uxorem  duxit ;  et  iste 
ilium,  ille  istum  carpebat. ’ ’ — De  Con¬ 
tempt.  Canon.  P.  i.  c.  11. 


152 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


That  the  Veronese  clergy  were  not  alone  in  obtaining  from  the 
secular  potentates  protection  against  these  efforts  on  the  part  of 
reforming  bishops,  is  evident  from  the  lamentations  of  Atto  of  Ver- 
celli.  That  estimable  prelate  deplores  the  blindness  of  those  who, 
when  paternally  warned  to  mend  their  evil  ways,  refuse  submission, 
and  seek  protection  from  the  nobles.  If  we  may  believe  him,  how¬ 
ever,  they  gained  but  little  by  this  course,  for  their  criminal  lives 
placed  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  secular  officials,  whose  threats  to 
seize  their  wives  and  children  could  only  be  averted  by  continual 
presents.  Thus  they  not  only  plundered  the  property  of  their 
churches,  but  forfeited  the  respect  and  esteem  of  their  flocks ;  all 
reverence  for  them  was  thereby  destroyed,  and,  living  in  perpetual 
dread  of  the  punishment  due  to  their  excesses,  in  place  of  com¬ 
manding  obedience,  they  were  exposed  to  constant  oppression  and 
petty  tyranny.1 

When  prelates  so  sincere  and  so  earnest  as  Ratherius  and  Atto 
were  able  to  accomplish  so  little,  it  is  easy  to  understand  what  must 
have  been  the  condition  of  the  dioceses  intrusted  to  the  great  mass 
of  bishops,  who  were  rather  feudal  nobles  than  Christian  prelates. 
St.  Wolfgang  of  Ratisbon  might  issue  thousands  of  exhortations  to 
his  clergy,  inculcating  chastity  as  the  one  indispensable  virtue,  and 
might  laboriously  reform  his  monasteries  in  which  monks  and  nuns 
led  a  life  almost  openly  secular ; 2  but  he  was  well-nigh  powerless  for 
good  compared  with  the  potentiality  of  evil  conveyed  by  the  example 
of  such  a  bishop  as  Segenfrid  of  Le  Mans,  who,  during  an  episcopate 
which  lasted  for  thirty-three  years,  took  to  himself  a  wife  named 
Hildeberga,  and  who  stripped  the  church  for  the  benefit  of  his  son 
Alberic,  the  sole  survivor  of  a  numerous  progeny  by  her  whom  he 
caused  to  be  reverenced  as  his  Upiscopissa  ;3  or  of  Archembald, 


1  Atton.  Vercell.  Epist.  9.  In  an¬ 
other  epistle  (No.  10)  Atto  congratu¬ 
lates  himself  on  the  reform  of  some 
of  his  clergy,  and  threatens  the  contu¬ 
macious  with  degradation. 

2  Othloni  Yit.  S.  Wolfkangi  c.  15, 
16,  17,  23. 

3  “Ad  cumulum  damnationis  suae, 
accepit  mulierem,  nomine  Hildebur- 
gam,  in  senectute,  quae,  ingresso  illo  ad 
se,  concepit  et  peperit  filios  et  Alias, 
&c.”  The  chronicler  makes  the  end  of 
this  aged  sinner  an  example  of  poetical 


justice  such  as  may  frequently  be  found 
in  the  monkish  annals  of  those  times — 
“  Qui  dum  esset  flebotomatus,  nocte 
insecuta  dormivit  cum  Episcopissa ; 
qua  de  re  vulnus  coepit  intumescere,  et 
dolor  usque  ad  interiora  cordis  deve¬ 
nire.”  Finding  his  end  approaching, 
he  assumed  the  monastic  habit  and  took 
the  vows,  after  which  he  immediately 
expired. — Act.  Pontif.  Cenoman.  c.  29 
(Dom  Bouquet,  X.  384-5). 

Fulbert  of  Chartres  has  left  us  a 
lively  sketch  of  the  military  bishops 
of  the  period. — “  Tvrannos  potius  ap- 


CONTE  ASTS. 


153 


Archbishop  of  Sens,  who,  taking  a  fancy  to  the  Abbey  of  St.  Peter, 
drove  out  the  monks  and  established  a  harem  of  concubines  in  the 
refectory,  and  installed  his  hounds  and  hawks  in  the  cloister.1 
Guarino  of  Modena  might  hope  to  stem  the  tide  of  license  by 
refusing  preferment  to  all  who  would  not  agree  to  hold  their  bene¬ 
fices  on  a  sort  of  feudal  tenure  of  chastity ; 2  but  he  had  much  less 
influence  on  his  age  than  such  a  man  as  Alberic  of  Marsico,  whose 
story  is  related  as  a  warning  by  Peter  Damiani.  He  was  married 
(for,  in  the  language  of  Damiani,  “  obscaena  meretricula  may  safely 
be  translated  a  wife),  and  had  a  son  to  whom  he  transferred  his 
bishopric,  as  though  it  had  been  an  hereditary  fief.  Growing  tired 
of  private  life,  however,  he  aspired  to  the  abbacy  of  Monte  Casino. 
That  humble  foundation  of  St.  Benedict  had  become  a  formidable 
military  power,  of  which  its  neighbors  the  Capuans  stood  in  constant 
dread.  Alberic  leagued  with  them,  and  a  plot  was  laid  by  which 
the  reigning  abbot’s  eyes  were  to  be  plucked  out  and  Alberic  placed 
in  possession,  for  which  service  he  agreed  to  pay  a  heavy  sum,  one- 
half  in  advance,  and  the  rest  when  the  abbot’s  eyes  should  be  deliv¬ 
ered  to  him.  The  deed  was  accomplished,  but  while  the  envoys  were 
bearing  to  Alberic  the  bloody  tokens  of  success,  they  were  met  by 
tidings  of  his  death,  and  on  comparing  notes  they  found  that  he  had 
expired  at  the  very  moment  of  the  perpetration  of  the  atrocious 
crime.3 

So  St.  Abbo  of  Fleury  might  exhaust  his  eloquence  in  inculcating 
the  beauty  and  holiness  of  immaculate  purity,  and  might  pile  au¬ 
thority  on  authority  to  demonstrate  the  punishments  which,  in  this 
world  and  the  next,  attended  on  those  who  disobeyed  the  rule ; 4  yet 
when  he  endeavored,  in  the  monastery  of  La  Reole,  a  dependency 
on  his  own  great  abbey  of  Fleury,  to  put  his  precepts  into  practice, 


pellabo,  qui  bellicis  occupati  negotiis, 
multo  stipati  latus  milite,  solidarios 
pretio  conducunt,  ut  nullos  saeculi  reges 
aut  principes  noverim  adeo  instructos 
bellorum  legibus,  totam  armorum  dis¬ 
ci  plinam  in  procinctu  militiae  servare, 
digerere  turmas,  ordines  componere,  ad 
turbandam  ecclesiae  pacem,  et  Christi- 
anorum,  licet  hostium,  sanguinem,  ef- 
fundendum.” — Fulbert.  Carnot.  Epist. 
112. 

1  Chron.  S.  Petri  Vivi  (D’Achery 
Spicileg.  II.  470). 

2  This  singular  oath  has  been  pub¬ 


lished  by  Muratori  (Antiq.  Ital.  Diss. 
xx.). — “Ego  Andrea  presbiter  pro- 
mitto  coram  Deo  et  omnibus  sanctis, 
et  tibi  Guarino  episcopo,  quod  carna- 
lem  commistionem  non  faciam;  et  si 
fecero,  et  onoris  mei  et  beneficio  eccle¬ 
siae  perdam.” 

3  S.  Petri  Damiani  Epist.  Lib.  iv. 
Epist.  8. — Leo  Marsicanus  (Chron. 
Cassinens.  Lib.  n.  c.  16)  asserts  that 
in  his  youth  he  himself  had  seen  and 
conversed  with  a  priest  who  had  been 
one  of  the  eye-bearers. 

4  Abbon.  Floriac.  Epist.  14. 


154 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


the  recalcitrant  monks  flew  to  arms  and  murdered  him  in  the  most 
brutal  manner,  not  even  sparing  the  faithful  Adalard,  who  was 
reverently  supporting  the  head  of  his  beloved  and  dying  master.1 
Damiani  might  well  exclaim,  when  bewailing  the  unfortunate  fate 
of  abbots,  on  whom  was  thrown  the  responsibility  of  the  morals  of 
their  communities — 


Pliinees  si  imitatur, 

Fugit  vel  expellitur ; 

Si  Eli,  tunc  irridetur 
Atque  parvipenditur ; 

Odiosus  est,  si  fervens, 

Et  vilis,  si  tepidus.2 

How  little  disposed  were  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  in  general  to 
sustain  the  efforts  of  puritans  like  St.  Abbo  was  clearly  shown  in 
the  council  of  St.  Denis,  convened  in  995  for  the  purpose  of  restoring 
the  neglected  discipline  of  the  church,  when,  passing  over  the  object 
of  its  assembling,  the  reverend  fathers  devoted  their  whole  attention 
to  the  more  practically  interesting  question  of  tithes.3 

All  prelates,  however,  were  not  either  feudal  chiefs  or  ascetic 
puritans.  Some,  who  were  pious  and  virtuous,  had  so  far  become 
infected  with  the  prevailing  laxity  that  they  regarded  the  stricter 
canons  as  obsolete,  and  offered  no  opposition  to  the  domestic  aspira¬ 
tions  of  their  clergy.  Thus  Constantine,  Abbot  of  the  great  house 
of  St.  Symphorian  of  Metz,  in  his  life  of  Adalbero  II.,  who  was 
Bishop  of  Metz  from  984  to  1005,  actually  praises  him  for  his  lib¬ 
erality  in  not  refusing  ordination  to  the  sons  of  priests,  and  attributes 
discreditable  motives  to  those  bishops  who  insisted  on  the  observance 
of  the  canons  prohibiting  all  such  promotions.4  As  Constantine  was 
a  monk  and  a  disciple  of  Adalbero,  the  tone  which  he  adopts  shows 


1  Although  Aimoin,  who  was  an  eye-  ; 
witness,  does  not  specially  mention  the  I 
cause  that  excited  the  monks  to  un¬ 
governable  fury,  yet  a  casual  allusion 
shows  that  women  were  responsible  for 
it. — “  Caeterum,  tantse  cladis  compila- 
tores  certissime  agnoscentes  beatum 
obiisse  Abbonem,  certatim  cuncti  in 
fugam  vertuntur,  ita  ut,  terris  reddito 
die,  ne  mulieres  quidam  in  universis 
forensibus  ipsius  villa?  invenirentur 
domibus,, — (Abbon.  Floriac.  Vit.  c. 
20) — and  the  day  after  his  death  “  una 
ex  his  mulieribus  quae  clamore  suo  | 
seditionem  concitaverant  ”  became  sud¬ 


denly  mad,  and  was  struck  with  in¬ 
curable  leprosy — (Aimoin.  Mirac.  S. 
Abbonis  c.  2). 

2  Damian.  Carm.  ccxxi. 

3  Aimoin.  Vit.  S.  Abbonis  c.  9. 

4  Episcopi  sui  temporis  aliqui  fastu 
superbiae,  aliqui  simplicitate  cordis, 
filios  saecularium  sacerdotum  ad  sacros 
ordines  admittere  dedignabantur,  nec 
ad  clericatum  eos  recipere  volentes ; 
hie  vero  beatus,  neminem  despiciens, 
neminem  spernens,  passim  cunctos 
recipiebat.  —  Constant.  S.  Symphor. 
Vit.  Adalberon.  II. c.  24. 


RELAXATION  OF  THE  CANONS. 


155 


that  the  higher  prelates  and  the  regular  clergy  were  beginning  to 
recognize  sacerdotal  marriage  as  a  necessity  of  the  age.  This  view 
is  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  no  effort  to  reform  an  abuse  so  uni¬ 
versal  was  made  at  the  great  synod  of  Dortmund,  held  in  1005  for 
the  special  purpose  of  restoring  the  discipline  of  the  church.1 

How  completely,  indeed,  marriage  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  matter 
of  course  is  manifest  when,  in  1019,  an  assembly  of  German  bishops, 
with  the  Emperor  St.  Henry  at  their  head,  gravely  deliberated  over 
the  knotty  question  whether,  when  a  noble  permitted  his  serf  to  enter 
into  holy  orders,  and  the  serf,  presuming  upon  his  new-born  dignities 
and  the  wealth  of  his  benefices,  married  a  free  woman  and  endeavored 
to  withhold  his  children  from  the  servitude  which  he  still  owed  to  his 
master,  such  infraction  of  his  master’s  rights  could  be  permitted  out 
of  respect  to  his  sacerdotal  character.  Long  and  vehement  was  the 
argument  among  the  learned  prelates,  until  finally  St.  Henry  decided 
the  point  authoritatively  by  pronouncing  in  favor  of  the  servitude  of 
the  children.2 

But  perhaps  the  most  instructive  illustration  of  the  character  and 
temper  of  the  age  may  be  found  in  the  three  prelates  who  for  more 
than  a  century  filled  the  rich  and  powerful  archi  episcopal  see  of 
Bouen.  Hugh,  whose  episcopate  lasted  from  942  to  989,  was  nom¬ 
inated  at  a  period  when  William  Longsword,  Duke  of  Normandy, 
was  contemplating  retirement  from  the  world  to  shroud  his  almost 
regal  dignity  under  the  cowl  of  the  monk,  yet  what  little  is  known 
of  his  archbishop  is  that,  though  he  was  a  monk  in  habit,  he  was  an 
habitual  violator  of  the  laws  of  God3 — in  short,  we  may  presume,  a 
man  well  suited  to  the  wild  half-pagan  times  which  witnessed  the 
assassination  of  Duke  William  and  the  minority  of  Richard  the 
Fearless.  On  his  death,  in  989,  Duke  Richard,  whose  piety  was  in¬ 
contestably  proved  by  the  liberality  of  his  monastic  foundations  and 
by  his  zeal  for  the  purity  of  his  monkish  proteges,4  filled  the  vacant 
see  with  his  son  Robert,  who  held  the  position  until  1037.  Robert 


1  Dithmar.  Merseberg.  Lib.  vi.  c.  24. 

2  S.  Heinrici  Sentent.  de  Conjug. 
Cleric.  (Patrologiae  T.  140  p.  231). 

5  A  nullo  scriptorum  qui  de  illo  sive 
de  episcopio  ejus  locuti  sunt,  laudatus 
est.  Palam  memorant  quod  habitu  non 
opere  monachus  fuerit. 

Successit  Hugo,  legis  Domini  violator 
Clara  stirpe  satus,  sed  Christi  lumine  cassus. 
— Order.  Vital.  Lib.  v.  c.  10  §  41. 


4  About  the  year  990,  for  instance, 
we  find  Duke  Richard  reforming  the 
celebrated  Abbey  of  Fecamp  and  re¬ 
placing  with  Benedictines  the  former 
occupants — canons  whose  secular  mode 
of  life  outraged  bis  pious  sensibilities — 
“  contigit  Fiscannenses  canonicos  alio- 
rum  canonicorum  mores  imitari,  latas 
perditionis  vias  ingredi,  et  rerum  tem- 
poralium  luxus  et  desidias  voluptuose 
sectari.” — Anon.  Fiscannens.  c.  17. 


156 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


was  publicly  and  openly  married,  and  by  his  wife  Herleva  he  had 
three  sons,  Richard,  Rodolf,  and  William,  to  whom  he  distributed  his 
vast  possessions.  Ordericus,  the  conscientious  cenobite  of  the  twelfth 
century,  looks,  in  truth,  somewhat  askance  at  this  disregard  of  the 
rules  accepted  in  his  own  time,1  yet  no  blame  seems  to  have  attached 
to  Robert  in  the  estimation  of  his  contemporaries.  The  family 
chronicler  characterizes  him  as  “  Robert  bons  clers,  honestes  horn,” 
and  assures  us  that  he  was  highly  esteemed  as  a  wise  and  learned 
prelate 

Li  secunz  fu  genz  e  aperz 
Et  si  fu  apelez  Roberz. 

Clerc  en  firent,  mult  aprist  bien, 

Si  fi  sage  sor  tote  rien ; 

De  Roem  out  l’arcevesquie 
Honore  fu  mult  e  preisie.2 

His  successor,  Mauger,  son  of  Duke  Richard  II.,  and  archbishop 
from  1037  to  1054,  was  worthy  of  his  predecessors.  Abandoned  to 
worldly  and  carnal  pleasures,  his  legitimate  son  Michael  was  a  dis¬ 
tinguished  knight,  and  half  a  century  later  stood  high  in  the  favor  of 
Henry  I.  of  England,  in  whose  court  he  was  personally  known  to 
the  historian.3  The  times  were  changing,  however,  and  Mauger  felt 
the  full  effects  of  reformatory  zeal,  for  he  was  deposed  in  1054 ;  the 
see  was  bestowed  on  St.  Maurilio,  a  Norman,  who  as  abbot  of  Santa 
Maria  in  Florence  had  been  driven  out  and  nearly  poisoned  to  death 
by  his  monks  on  account  of  the  severity  of  his  rule,  and  the  Norman 
clergy,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  experienced  their  share  of  suffering 
in  the  mutation  of  discipline. 


Notwithstanding  this  all-pervading  laxity,  the  canons  of  the 
church  remained  unaltered,  and  their  full  force  was  theoretically 
admitted.  Hopeless  efforts,  moreover,  were  occasionally  made  to  re¬ 
establish  them,  as  in  the  council  of  Anse  in  990,  which  reminded 


1  Namconjugem  nomine  Herlevam, 
ut  comes,  habuit,  ex  qua  tres  filios, 
Richardum,  Radulfum  et  Guillelmum 
genuit;  quibus  Ebroicensem  comitatum 
et  alios  honores  amplissimos  secundum 
jus  saeculi  distribuit. — Orderic.  Vital. 
Lib.  v.  c.  10  $  42. 

So  in  the  Normanniae  Nova  Chronica, 
published  by  Cheruel  in  1850,  “  Iste 
llobertus  fuit  uxoratus,  et  ex  Herleva 
conjuge  sua  tres  filios  habuit,  Richar¬ 
dum,  Radulfum  et  Willelmum.” 


2  Benoit,  Chronique  des  Dues  de 
Normandie,  v.  32427,  24912.  We  may 
fairly  conclude  from  these  expressions 
that  Robert  was  educated  for  the  priest¬ 
hood. 

3  Voluptatibus  carnis  mundanisque 
curis  indecenter  inhaesit,  filiumque 
nomine  Michaelem  prohum  militem  et 
legitimum  genuit,  quem  in  Anglia  jam 
senem  rex  Henricus  honorat  et  diligit. 
— Orderic.  Vital.  Lib.  v.  c.  10  §  43. 


CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


157 


the  clergy  that  intercourse  with  wives  after  ordination  was  punishable 
with  forfeiture  of  benefice  and  deprivation  of  priestly  functions;1 
and  in  that  of  Poitiers  about  the  year  1000,  which  prohibited  concu¬ 
bines  under  pain  of  degradation.2  In  a  similar  spirit,  a  Penitential 
of  the  period  recapitulates  the  severe  punishments  of  a  former  age, 
involving  degradation  and  fearfully  long  terms  of  penance.3  All 
this,  however,  was  practically  a  dead  letter.  The  person  who  best 
represents  the  active  intelligence  of  the  age  was  Gerbert  of  Aurillac, 
the  most  enlightened  man  of  his  time,  who,  after  occupying  the 
archiepiscopal  seats  of  Rheirns  and  Ravenna,  finally  became  pope 
under  the  name  of  Silvester  II.  The  lightness  with  which  he  treats 
the  subject  of  celibacy  is  therefore  fairly  a  measure  of  the  views 
entertained  by  the  ruling  spirits  of  the  church,  beyond  the  narrow 
bounds  of  cloistered  asceticism.  Gerbert,  describing  in  a  sermon  the 
requisites  of  the  episcopal  and  sacerdotal  offices,  barely  refers  to  the 
“unius  uxoris  vir,”  which  he  seems  to  regard  in  an  allegorical  rather 
than  in  a  literal  sense;  he  scarcely  alludes  to  chastity,  while  he 
dilates  with  much  energy  on  simony,  which  he  truly  characterizes  as 
the  almost  universal  vice  of  his  contemporaries.4  So  when,  in  997, 
he  convened  the  council  of  Ravenna  to  regulate  the  discipline  of  his 
church,  he  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  incontinence,  while  strenu¬ 
ously  endeavoring  to  root  out  simony.5  At  an  earlier  period,  while 
Abbot  of  Bobbio,  in  an  epistle  to  his  patron,  the  Emperor  Otho  II., 
refuting  various  calumnies  of  his  enemies,  he  alludes  to  a  report  of 
his  having  a  wife  and  children  in  terms  which  show  how  little  im¬ 
portance  he  attached  to  the  accusation.6 


1  Concil  Ansan.  ann.  990  c.  5. 

2  Concil.  Pictaviens.  c.  ann.  1000  c. 
3. 

3  Si  clericus  superioris  gradus,  qui 
uxorem  habuit,  et  post  confessionem  vel 
honorem  clericatus  iterum  earn  cogno- 
verit,  sciat  sibi  adulterium  commisisse, 
sicut  superiore  sententia  unusquisque 
juxta  ordine  suo  poeniteat  [i.  e.  dia- 
conus  et  monachi  vn.  (annos)  in.  ex 
bis  pane  et  aqua.  Presbyter  x.  Epis- 
copus  xii.,  v.  ex  his  pane  et  aqua.] 
.  .  .  Si  quis  clericus  aut  monachus 
postquam  se  devoverit  ad  saecularem 
babitum  iterum  reversus  fuerit  aut 
uxorem  duxerit,  x.  annos  poeniteat,  in. 
ex  bis  in  pane  et  aqua,  nunquam  postea 


in  conjugium  copuletur. — Judicium 
Poenitentis  ex  Sacrament.  Rhenaug. 

4  Gerberti  Sermo  de  Informat.  Epis- 
copor. 

5  Gerberti  Opp.  p.  197  sqq.  (Ed. 
Migne). 

6  “  Taceo  de  me  quern  novo  locutionis 
genere  equum  emissarium  susurrant, 
uxorem  et  filios  habentem,  propter 
partem  familiae  meae  de  Francia  recol- 
lectam.” — Gerberti  Epist.  Sect.  I.  No. 
xi. — Gerbert’s  reputation  for  sanctity 
is  not  such  as  to  render  scandalous  the 
suspicion  that  the  family  thus  gathered 
around  him  might  afford  legitimate  oc¬ 
casion  for  gossip,  notwithstanding  his 
abbacy  and  the  fact  that  he  had  been 
bred  in  a  convent. 


158 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 


Such,  at  the  opening  of  the  eleventh  century,  was  the  condition 
of  the  church  as  regards  ascetic  celibacy.  Though  the  ancient 
canons  were  still  theoretically  in  force,  they  were  practically  obsolete 
everywhere.  Legitimate  marriage  or  promiscuous  profligacy  was 
almost  universal,  in  some  places  unconcealed,  in  others  covered  with 
a  thin  veil  of  hypocrisy,  according  as  the  temper  of  the  ruling 
prelate  might  be  indulgent  or  severe.  So  far,  therefore,  Latin 
Christianity  had  gained  but  little  in  its  struggle  of  six  centuries 
with  human  nature.  Whether  the  next  eight  hundred  years  will 
show  a  more  favorable  result  remains  for  us  to  develop. 

Before  proceeding,  however,  to  discuss  the  events  of  the  succeed¬ 
ing  century,  it  will  be  well  to  cast  a  rapid  glance  at  a  portion  of 
Christendom,  the  isolation  of  which  has  thus  far  precluded  it  from 
receiving  attention. 


f 


XL 

SAXON  ENGLAND. 


Whatever  of  virtue  or  purity  may  have  distinguished  the  church 
of  Britain  under  Roman  domination  was  speedily  extinguished  in 
the  confusion  of  the  Saxon  occupation.  Gildas,  who  flourished  in 
the  first  half  of  the  sixth  century,  describes  the  clergy  of  his  time 
as  utterly  corrupt.1  He  apparently  would  have  been  satisfied  if  the 
bishops  had  followed  the  Apostolic  precept  and  contented  themselves 
with  being  husbands  of  one  wife ;  and  he  complains  that  instead  of 
bringing  up  their  children  in  chastity,  the  latter  were  corrupted  by 
the  evil  example  of  their  parents.2  Under  Saxon  rule,  Christianity 
was  probably  well-nigh  trampled  out,  except  in  the  remoter  moun¬ 
tain  districts,  to  be  subsequently  restored  in  its  sacerdotal  form  under 
the  direct  auspices  of  Rome. 

Meanwhile,  the  British  Isles  were  the  theatre  of  another  and  in¬ 
dependent  religious  movement.  While  the  Saxons  were  subverting 
Christianity  in  Britain,  St.  Patrick  was  successfully  engaged  in  lay¬ 
ing  the  foundations  of  the  Irish  church.3  We  have  seen  (p.  76)  that 
celibacy  was  not  one  of  the  rules  enforced  in  the  infant  Irish 


1  Ita  ut  clerici  (quod  non  absque 
dolore  cordis  fateor)  impudici,bilingues, 
ebrii,  turpis  lucri  cupidi,  habentes  fidem, 
et  ut  verius  dicam,  infidelitatem,  in 
conscientia  impura,  non  probati  in 
bona,  sed  in  malo  opere  praesciti  minis- 
trantes,  et  innumera  crimina  habentes, 
sacro  ministerio  adsciscantur. — Gildse 
de  Excid.  Britan.  Pt.  in.  cap.  23 — Cf. 
cap.  1,  2,  3. 

2  “ Unius  uxoris  virum .”  Quid  ita 
apud  nos  quoque  contemnitur,  quasi 
non  audiretur,  vel  idem  dicere  et  virum 
uxorum?  .  .  .  Sed  quid  erit,  ubi  nee 
pater  nee  filius  mali  genitoris  exemplo 
pravatus  conspicitur  castus?  —  Gildce 
loc.  cit. 


3  Modern  criticism  has  raised  doubts 
as  to  the  existence  of  St.  Patrick. 
Whether  they  are  well-  grounded  or  not 
is  a  matter  of  little  importance  here,  as 
we  are  concerned  only  with  the  institu¬ 
tions  bearing  his  name,  which  institu¬ 
tions  undoubtedly  did  exist.  Mean¬ 
while  I  may  add  that  few  remote  events 
appear  to  rest  on  better  authority  than 
the  conversion  of  the  Gaeidhil,  about 
j  the  year  438,  by  a  person  known  to  his 
[  contemporaries  as  Patraic,  or  Patricius ; 
and  the  name  of  Cain  Patraic  applied 
to  the  secular  code  attributed  to  him, 
dates  from  a  very  high  antiquity. — See 
Senchus  Mor,  Hancock’s  Ed.  Vol.  I. 
Dublin,  1865. 


160 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


church ;  but  this  was  of  comparatively  little  moment,  for  that  church 
was  almost  exclusively  monastic  in  its  character,  and  preserved  the 
strictest  views  as  to  the  observance  of  the  vows  by  those  who  had 
once  taken  them.1  That  the  principles  thus  established  were  long 
preserved  is  evident  from  a  curious  collection  of  Hibernian  canons, 
made  in  the  eighth  century,  of  which  selections  have  been  published 
by  d’Achery  and  Martene.  Some  of  these  are  credited  by  the  com¬ 
pilers  to  Gildas,  and  thus  show  the  discipline  of  the  early  British  as 
well  as  of  the  Irish  church.2  Their  tendency  is  towards  the  purest 
asceticism.  A  penance  of  forty  days  was  even  enjoined  on  the 
ecclesiastic  who,  without  thought  of  evil,  indulged  in  the  pleasure  of 
converse  with  a  -woman.3  So  in  Ireland,  a  council  held  in  672 
decrees  that  a  priest  guilty  of  unchastity,  although  removable  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  strict  rule  of  discipline,  may  be  allowed,  if  truly  con¬ 
trite,  to  retain  his  position  on  undergoing  ten  years  of  penitence4 — 
an  alternative,  one  might  think,  rather  of  severity  than  of  mercy. 
One  canon  attributed  to  Gildas  shows  that  in  the  British  monastic 
system  unchastity  was  considered  the  most  heinous  of  offences,  and 
also  that  it  was  sufficiently  common  ;5  while  another  alludes  to  the 
same  vice  among  prelates  as  justifying  immediate  excommunication.6 

The  missionary  career  by  which  the  Irish  church  repaid  the  debt 
that  it  owed  to  Christianity  is  well  known,  and  the  form  of  faith 
which  it  spread  was  almost  exclusively  monastic.  Luanus,  one  of 
the  monks  of  Benchor,  is  said  to  have  founded  no  less  than  a  hundred 
monasteries ; 7  and  when  Columba  established  the  Christian  religion 
in  Scotland,  he  carried  with  him  this  tendency  to  asceticism  and 
inculcated  it  among  his  Pictish  neophytes.  His  Rule  enjoins  the 
most  absolute  purity  of  mind  as  well  as  body ; 8  and  that  his  teach¬ 
ings  -were  long  obeyed  is  evident  when  we  find  that,  a  hundred  and 


1  Synod.  S.  Patricii  c.  9,  17  (Haddan 
&  Stubbs  II.  328-9) — Synod.  II.  S. 
Patricii  c.  17,  21  (Ibid.  335—6). 

2  Pra?fat.  Gild®  de  Pcenitent.  cap.  1 
(Martene  Thesaur.  IV.  7). 

3  Lib.  de  Remed.  Peccat.  cap.  de 
Fornicat.  (Martene  IV.  23). — Cf. 
Synod.  Aquilon.  Britan,  cap.  1  (Ibid, 
p.  9). 

4  In  this  long  course  of  penance, 

three  months  were  to  be  spent  in  soli¬ 

tary  confinement,  with  bread  and  water 

at  night;  then  eighteen  months  in  fast¬ 


ing  on  bread  and  water;  then  bread 
and  water  three  days  in  the  week  for 
five  years  and  three  months ;  then  bread 
and  water  on  Fridays  for  the  remaining 
three  years. — Gratian.  Dist.  lxxxii.  c. 
5. 

6  ArbedocetHaelliucarLib.  xxxvm. 
cap.  7  (D’Achery  I.  500). 

6  Haddan  &  Stubbs,  Councils  of 
Great  Britain,  I.  112. 

7  Bernardi  Vit.  S.  Malachi®  cap.  vi. 

8  S.  Columbani  Regul.  cap.  vi. 


CONVERSION  OF  THE  SAXONS. 


161 


fifty  years  later,  his  disciples  are  praised  for  the  chastity  and  zeal 
of  their  self-denying  lives  by  the  Venerable  Bede,  who  was  fully 
alive  to  the  importance  of  the  rule,  and  who  would  have  wasted  no 
such  admiration  on  them  had  they  lived  in  open  disregard  of  it.1 
Equally  convincing  is  the  fact  that  Scotland  and  the  Islands  were 
claimed  to  be  under  the  supremacy  of  the  see  of  York,  and  that 
during  the  long  controversy  requisite  to  break  down  their  schismatic 
notions  respecting  the  date  of  Easter  and  the  shape  of  the  tonsure, 
not  a  word  was  said  that  can  lead  to  the  supposition  that  they  held 
any  unorthodox  views  on  the  far  more  important  subject  of  sacer¬ 
dotal  purity.2 

When,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  Anglo-Saxon  invasion, 
Gregory  the  Great  undertook  the  conversion  of  the  islanders,  the 
missionaries  whom  he  despatched  under  Augustin  of  course  carried 
with  them  the  views  and  ideas  which  then  held  undisputed  sway  in 
Rome.  Apparently,  however,  asceticism  found  little  favor  at  first 
with  the  new  converts,  rendering  it  difficult  for  Augustin  to  obtain 
sufficient  co-laborers  among  his  disciples,  for  he  applied  to  Gregory 
to  learn  whether  he  might  allow  those  who  could  not  restrain  their 
passions  to  marry  and  yet  remain  in  the  ministry.  To  this  Gregory 
replied  evasively,  stating,  what  Augustin  already  knew,  that  the 
lower  grades  might  marry,  hut  making  no  reference  whatever  to  the 
higher  orders.3  He  apparently  did  not  wish  to  assume  the  responsi¬ 
bility  of  relaxing  the  rule,  while  willing  perhaps  to  connive  at  its 


1  Reliquit  (Columbanus)  successores 
magna  continentia  ac  divino  amore 
regularique  institutione  insignes  .  .  . 
pietatis  et  castitatis  opera  diligenter 
observantes  (Bedse  Hist.  Eccles.  Lib. 
ill.  c.  4,  cf.  also  c.  26).  Bede’s  ortho¬ 
doxy  on  the  subject  is  unquestionable : 
“  Sacerdotibus  ut  semper  altari  queant 
assistere,  semper  ab  uxoribus  conti- 
nendum,  semper  castitas  observanda 
praecipitur  ”  (In  Lucse  Evang.  Ex- 
posit.  Lib.  I.  cap.  1). — “  Quanta  sunt 
maledictione  digni  qui  prohibent  nu- 
bere  et  dispositionem  coelestis  decreti 
quasi  a  diabolo  repertam  condemnant  ? 
.  .  .  sed  magis  honoranda,  majore  est 
digna  benedictione  virginitas.”  (Hex- 
semeron.  Lib.  i.  sub  tit.  Benedixitque 
illis.)  See  also  De  Tabernac.  Lib.  in. 
c.  9,  already  referred  to  (p.  65). 


2  See,  for  instance,  the  proceedings 
of  the  synod  of  Whitby  in  664,  where 
the  differences  between  the  Scottish 
and  Roman  observances  were  fully  dis¬ 
cussed  (Spelman.  Concil.  I.  145).  So 
when,  in  633,  Honorius  I.  addressed 
the  Scottish  clergy,  reproving  their 
false  computation  of  Easter  and  their 
Pelagianism,  he  made  no  allusion  to 
any  want  of  clerical  purity  (Bedse  Hist. 
Eccles.  Lib.  ii.  c.  19). 

3  “  Opto  enim  doceri  an  clerici  conti- 
nere  non  valentes,  possint  contrahere  ; 
et  si  contraxerint,  an  debeant  ad  ssecu- 
lum  redire” — to  which  Gregory  re¬ 
sponds  with  a  long  exhortation  as  to  the 
duties  of  the  “clerici  extra  sacros  ordines 
constituti  ” — Gregor.  I.  Regist.  Lib.  xi. 
Epist.  lxiv.  Respons.  2. 

11 


i  V. 


162 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


suspension  in  order  to  encourage  the  infant  Anglican  church.  If 
so,  the  indulgence  was  but  temporary. 

The  attempt  has  been  made  to  prove  that  marriage  was  permitted 
in  the  early  Saxon  church,  and  support  for  this  supposition  has  been 
sought  from  a  clause  in  the  Dooms  of  King  Ina,  of  which  the  date 
is  about  the  year  TOO,  fixing  the  wTer-gild  of  the  son  of  a  bishop. 
But  the  rubric  of  the  law  shows  that  it  refers  rather  to  a  godson ; 1 
and  even  if  it  were  not  so,  we  have  already  seen  how  often  in  France, 
at  the  same  period,  the  episcopal  office  was  bestowed  on  eminent  or 
influential  laymen,  who  were  obliged  on  its  acceptance  to  part  with 
their  wives.  The  Magdeburg  Centuriators,  indeed,  describe  a  council 
held  in  London  in  712  or  714,  by  which  image- worship  was  intro¬ 
duced  and  separation  between  priests  and  their  wives  was  decreed,2 
but  there  is  no  authority  cited,  nor  is  such  an  assembly  elsewhere 
alluded  to,  even  Cave  pronouncing  it  evidently  supposititious.3 

These  speculations  are  manifestly  groundless.  The  celebrated 
Theodore,  who  was  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  from  668  to  690,  in  his 
Liber  Poenitentialis ,  forbids  the  marriage  of  the  clergy  under  pain  of 
deposition,  and  all  intercourse  with  such  wives  was  punished  by  life¬ 
long  penance  as  laymen ;  not  only  were  digami  ineligible  to  ordination, 
but  also  even  those  who  had  kept  concubines ;  and  the  zeal  for  purity 
is  carried  so  far  that  even  baptism  performed  by  priests  guilty  of  for¬ 
nication  was  pronounced  invalid  and  had  to  be  repeated — an  expres¬ 
sion  of  reprobation  which  it  would  be  hard  to  parallel  elsewhere  in  the 
history  of  the  church.4  When  such  were  the  views  of  the  primate,  and 
such  were  the  laws  which  he  prescribed,  we  cannot  imagine  that  under 
his  vigorous  rule  these  canons  were  permitted  to  be  inoperative  in  a 
church  sufficiently  enlightened  to  produce  the  learning  and  piety  of 
men  like  Bede  and  St.  Aldhelm ;  where  the  admiration  of  virginity  was 
as  great  as  that  which  finds  utterance  in  the  writings  of  these  fathers,5 

o  O' 


1  Si  episcopi  filius  sit,  sit  dimidium 
hoc  (Leg.  Inae  c.  lxxvi.).  The  rubric 
of  the  law  is  “  De  occidente  filiolum 
vel  patrinura  alicujus”  (Thorpe,  An¬ 
cient  Laws  of  England,  II.  472). 

2  Denique  promulgatur  decretum  .  .  . 
de  ahdicandis  sacerdotum  uxoribus. — 
Spelman.  Concil.  I.  216. 

3  Cave,  Script.  Eccles.  Hist.  pp. 
424-5  (Ed.  1705). 

4  Theodori  Poenitent.  i.  ix.  1,4,  5,  6, 
10;  II.  ii.  12  (Haddan  &  Stubbs,  III. 

184-5,  192). 


5  See,  for  instance,  St.  Aldhelm’ 
rhapsodies,  “  De  laudibus  virginitatis ’’ 
and  “  De  laudibus  virginum.”  The 
orthodoxy  of  Bede  on  this  question  has 
already  been  alluded  to. 

According  to  the  legend,  St.  Aldhelm 
tried  liis  virtue  bv  the  same  crucial  ex- 
periments  as  those  resorted  to  by  some 
of  the  ardent  devotees  of  the  third 
century,  concealing  his  motive  in  order 
that  his  humility  might  enjoy  the 
benefit  of  undeserved  reprobation. 
“Sancti  Aldelmi  Malmesburiensis,  qui 
inter  duas  puellas,  unam  ab  uno  latere, 


CELIBACY  IN  THE  EARLY  SAXON  CHURCH.  163 


and  the  principles  of  asceticism  were  so  influential  as  to  lead  a  power¬ 
ful  monarch  like  Ina  to  retire  with  his  queen,  Ethelberga,  from  the 
throne  which  he  had  gloriously  filled,  to  the  holy  restrictions  of  a 
monastic  life. 

Ecgberht,  who  was  Archbishop  of  York  from  T32  to  T66,  is  almost 
equally  decisive  in  his  condemnation  of  priestly  irregularities,  though 
he  returned  to  the  received  doctrine  of  the  church  that  baptism  could 
not  be  repeated.1  It  is  also  probable  that  even  the  Britons,  who 
derived  their  Christianity  from  the  older  and  purer  sources  of  the 
primitive  church,  preserved  the  rule  wTith  equal  reverence.  At  the 
request  of  a  national  council,  St.  Aldhelm  addressed  an  epistle  to 
the  Welsh  king,  (rerun tius,  to  induce  him  to  reform  his  church  so  as 
to  bring  it  wdthin  the  pale  of  Catholic  unity.  To  accomplish  this, 
he  argues  at  length  upon  the  points  of  difference,  discussing  the 
various  errors  of  faith  and  discipline,  such  as  the  shape  of  the  ton- 
sure,  the  date  of  Easter,  &c.,  but  he  is  silent  with  regard  to  marriage 
or  concubinage.2  Had  the  Welsh  church  been  schismatic  in  this 
respect,  so  ardent  a  celibatarian  as  Aldhelm  would  certainly  not 
have  omitted  all  reference  to  a  subject  of  so  much  interest  to  him. 
The  inference  is  therefore  justifiable  that  no  difference  of  this  nature 
existed. 

We  may  fairly  conclude  that  the  discipline  of  the  church  in  these 
matters  was  reasonably  well  maintained  by  the  Saxon  clergy,  with 
the  exception  of  the  monasteries,  the  morals  of  which  institutions 
appear  to  have  been  deplorably  and  incurably  loose.  About  the 
middle  of  the  seventh  century  John  IY.  reproves  the  laxity  of  the 
Saxon  monasticism  under  which  the  holy  virgins  did  not  hesitate  to 
marry.3  In  734  we  find  Bede,  in  an  epistle  to  Ecgberht  of  York, 
advising  him  to  create  suffragan  bishoprics  and  to  endow  them  from 
the  monastic  foundations,  of  which  there  were  a  countless  number 
totally  neglectful  of  all  monastic  discipline,  whose  reformation  could 
apparently  be  accomplished  in  no  other  way.4  St.  Boniface,  whose 
zeal  on  the  subject  has  already  been  sufficiently  made  manifest,  about 


alteram  ab  altero,  singulis  noctibus  ut 
ab  hominibus  diffamaretur,  a  Deo  vero 
cui  nota  fuerat  conscientia  ipsius  et 
continentia  copiosius  in  futurum  remu- 
neraretur,  jacuisse  describitur.  ’ ; — 
Girald.  Cambrens.  Gemm.  Eccles.  Dist. 
ii.  cap.  xv. 

1  Ecgberti  Pcenitent.  t.  n.  3 ;  iv.  2, 


7,  8 ;  v.  1-22. — Ejusd.  Dialog,  v. 
(Haddan  &  Stubbs,  III.  40G,  419-23). 

2  Epist.  ad  Geruntium. — Aldhelmi 
Opp.  p.  83  (Ed.  Oxon.  1844). 

3  Johan.  PP.  IV.  Epist.  iii. 

4  Bed;®  Epist.  n. 


164 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


the  year  746  paused  in  his  reformation  of  the  French  priesthood  to 
urge  upon  Cuthbert,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  necessity  of 
repressing  the  vices  of  the  Saxon  ecclesiastics.  He  dwells  at  con¬ 
siderable  length  upon  their  various  crimes  and  misdemeanors — drunk¬ 
enness,  unclerical  garments,  neglect  of  their  sacred  functions,  &c. — 
but  he  does  not  accuse  them  of  unchastity,  which  he  could  not  well 
have  avoided  doing  had  there  been  colorable  grounds  for  such  a 
charge.  In  fact,  the  only  allusion  connected  with  the  question  in 
his  epistle  is  a  request  that  some  restrictions  should  be  laid  upon  the 
permissions  granted  to  women  and  nuns  for  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  on 
account  of  the  attendant  dangers  to  their  virtue;  in  illustration  of 
which  he  states  the  lamentable  fact  that  scarcely  a  city  in  Lombardy, 
France,  or  the  Rhinelands  but  had  Saxon  courtesans  derived  from 
this  source,  to  the  shame  and  scandal  of  the  whole  church.1 

Pope  Zachary  seconded  these  representations,  and  in  747  Cuth¬ 
bert,  yielding  to  the  impulsion,  held  the  celebrated  council  of  Clovesho, 
which  adopted  thirty  canons  on  discipline,  to  remedy  the  disorders 
enumerated  by  Boniface.  Among  these,  the  only  ones  directed 
against  unchastity  relate  solely  to  the  nunneries,  which  were  repre¬ 
sented  as  being  in  a  condition  of  gross  immorality.2 * * * &  The  council 
does  not  spare  the  vices  of  the  secular  clergy,  and  its  silence  with 
respect  to  their  purity  fairly  permits  the  inference  that  there  was  not 
much  to  correct  with  regard  to  it,  for  had  licentiousness  been  so  prev¬ 
alent  that  Cuthbert  had  feared  to  denounce  it,  or  had  sacerdotal 
marriage  been  passed  over  as  lawful,  the  zeal  of  St.  Boniface  would 
have  led  to  an  explosion,  and  Zachary  would  not  have  sanctioned  the 
proceedings  by  his  approval. 

The  same  argument  is  applicable  to  the  council  of  Chelsea,  held 
in  787  by  the  legates  of  Adrian  I.,  under  the  presidency  of  Gregory, 


1  Bonifacii  Epist.  105. 

2  Can.  20  directs  greater  strictness 

with  regard  to  visitors,  “unde  non  sint 
sanctimonialium  domicilia  turpium 

confabulationum,  connnessationum, 
ebrietatum,  luxuriantiumque  cubilia.” 
Can.  28  orders  that  nuns  after  taking 
the  veil  shall  not  wear  lay  garments ; 
and  can.  29  that  clerks,  monks,  and 
nuns  shall  cot  live  with  the  laity. 

(Spelman.  Concil.  I.  250-4. — Haddan 

&  Stubbs,  III.  369,  374.) 

This  demoralization  of  the  nunneries 
is  not  to  be  wondered  at  when  Boniface, 


in  reproving  Ethelbald,  King  of  Mercia, 
for  his  evil  courses,  could  say,  “  Et 
adhuc,  quod  pejus  est,  qui  nobis  nar- 
rant  adjiciunt :  quod  hoc  scelus  maxi- 
me  cum  sanctis  monialibus  et  sacratis 
Deo  virginibus  per  monasteria  com- 
missum  sit.”  This  sacrilegious  licen¬ 
tiousness,  indeed,  would  seem  almost  to 
have  been  habitual  with  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  reguli  for  Boniface  instances  the 
fate  of  Ethelbald ’s  predecessor  Ceolrcd 
and  of  Osred  of  Northumbria  who  had 
both  came  to  an  untimely  end  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  indulgence  in  similar  evil 
courses. — Bonifacii  Epist.  19. 


CONDITION  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


165 


Bishop  of  Ostia.  The  vices  and  shortcomings  of  the  Anglican 
church  were  there  sharply  reproved,  but  no  allusion  was  made  to  any 
unchastity  prevailing  among  the  priesthood,  with  the  exception,  as 
before,  of  nuns,  on  whom  we  may  infer  that  previous  reformatory 
efforts  had  been  wasted ; 1  and  in  an  epistle  from  Alcuin  to  Ethelred 
King  of  Northumbria  near  the  close  of  the  century  there  is  the  same 
reference  to  nuns,  without  special  condemnation  of  the  other  classes 
of  the  clergy.2  That  this  reticence  did  not  arise  from  any  license 
granted  for  marriage  is  conclusively  shown  by  the  interpolation  of 
the  word  laicus  in  the  text  I.  Cor.  vii.  2,  which  is  quoted  among 
the  canons  adopted.3  To  the  same  effect  are  the  canons  of  the 
council  of  Chelsea,  in  816,  in  which  the  only  allusion  to  such  matters 
is  a  provision  to  prevent  the  election  of  unfit  persons  to  abbacies, 
and  to  punish  monks  and  nuns  who  secularize  themselves.4 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  true  that  about  this  time  St.  Swithun, 
after  obtaining  orders,  was  openly  married ;  but  his  biographer  states 
that  he  had  a  special  dispensation  from  Leo  III.,  and  that  he  con¬ 
sented  to  it  because,  on  the  death  of  his  parents,  he  was  the  sole 
representative  of  his  family.5  As  Swithun  was  tutor  to  Ethelwulf, 
son  of  King  Ecgberht,  the  papal  condescension  is  by  no  means  im¬ 
possible. 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  church  at  this  period. 
During  the  century  which  follows,  the  materials  for  fracing  the 
vicissitudes  of  the  question  before  us  are  of  the  scantiest  description. 
The  occasional  councils  which  were  held  have  left  but  meagre  records 
of  their  deliberations,  with  few  or  no  references  to  the  subject  of 
celibacy.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  a  rapid  deterioration  in  the 
strictness  of  discipline  occurred,  for  even  the  power  of  the  great 
Bretwalda  Ecgberht  was  unequal  to  the  task  of  repressing  effectually 
the  first  invasions  of  the  Northmen,  and  under  his  feebler  successors 
they  grew  more  and  more  destructive,  until  they  culminated  in  the 
anarchy  which  gave  occasion  to  the  romantic  adventures  of  Alfred. 

It  is  to  this  period  of  darkness  that  we  must  attribute  the  intro- 


1  Concil.  Calchuth.  can.  15,  16 

(Haddan  &  Stubbs,  III.  455-6). 

2  Haddan  &  Stubbs,  Councils,  etc., 
III.  493. 

3  Propter  fornicationem  fugiendam  | 

unusquisque  laicus  suam  uxorem  le-  i 


gitimam  habeat. — Concil.  Calchuth. 
can.  16. 

4  Concil.  Celicyth.  ann.  816  can.  4 
8  (Haddan  &  Stubbs,  III.  580-3). 

5  Goscelini  Vit.  S.  Swithuni  c.  1,2. 


166 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


duction  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  which  became  so  firmly  established 
and  was  finally  so  much  a  matter  of  course  that  it  attracted  no 
special  attention,  until  the  efforts  made  for  its  abrogation  late  in  the 
succeeding  century.  When  Alfred  undertook  to  restore  order  in  his 
recovered  kingdom,  the  body  of  the  laws  which  he  compiled  contains 
no  allusion  to  celibacy,  except  as  regards  the  chastity  of  nuns.  The 
same  may  be  said  of  the  constitutions  of  Odo,  Archbishop  of  Can¬ 
terbury,  to  which  the  date  of  943  is  attributed,  although  they  con¬ 
tain  instructions  as  to  the  conduct  of  bishops,  priests,  and  clerks1  — 
whence  we  may  infer  that  the  marriage  even  of  consecrated  virgins 
was  not  uncommon,  and  that  it  was  the  only  infraction  of  the  rule 
which  aroused  the  opposition  of  the  hierarchy.  Simple  immorality 
called  forth  an  occasional  enactment,  as  in  the  laws  of  Edward  and 
Guthrun  about  the  year  906,  and  in  those  of  Edmund  I.  in  944, 2 
yet  even  to  this  but  little  attention  seems  to  have  been  attracted, 
until  St.  Dunstan  undertook  a  reformation  which  was  sorely  needed. 

St.  Dunstan  himself,  although  regularly  bred  to  the  church,  with 
the  most  brilliant  prospects  both  from  his  distinguished  abilities  and 
his  powerful  kindred,  betrothed  himself  in  marriage  after  receiving 
the  lower  orders.  His  uncle,  St.  Elphege,  Bishop  of  Winchester — 
apparently  a  churchman  of  the  stricter  school — vehemently  opposed 
the  union,  but  Dunstan  was  immovable  in  his  determination.  Elphege, 
finding  his  worldly  wisdom  set  at  nought,  appealed  to  the  assistance 
of  heaven.  His  prayer  was  answered,  and  Dunstan  was  attacked 
wfith  a  mysterious  and  loathsome  malady,  under  which  his  iron  reso¬ 
lution  gave  way.  He  sought  Elphege,  took  the  monastic  vow  (the 
only  inseparable  bar  to  matrimony),  and  was  ordained  a  priest.3 
This  stern  experience  might  have  taught  him  charity  for  the  weakness 
of  natures  less  unbending  than  his  own,  but  his  temperament  was  not 
one  to  pause  half-way.  If,  too,  religious  conviction  urged  him  to 
the  task  of  restoring  the  forgotten  discipline  of  the  church,  worldly 
ambition  might  reasonably  claim  its  share  in  his  motives.  He  could 
not  but  feel  that  his  authority  would  be  vastly  enhanced  by  rendering 


1  Leg.  Aluredi  c.  8,  18. — Constit. 
Odon.  Cantuar.  c.  7. 

2  Leg.  Edwardi  et  Guthrun.  c.  3. — 
Leg.  Eadmund.  Eccles.  c.  1. 

3  Bridfrit.  Vit.  S.  Dunstan.  c.  5,  7. 
Bridfrith  was  a  disciple  of  St.  Dunstan, 
and  composed  his  biography  but  a  few 
years  after  the  death  of  his  patron.  He 


does  not  state  what  was  the  position  of 
Dunstan  at  the  time  of  his  betrothal ; 
hut  Oshern,  a  hundred  years  later,  as¬ 
serts  that  he  had  acquired  the  lower 
orders  only,  and  that  he  received  the 
priesthood  and  took  the  monastic  vows 
simultaneously. — Osberni  Vit.  S.  Dun¬ 
stan.  c.  8,  12. 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  REFORM. 


167 


the  great  ecclesiastical  body  dependent  entirely  upon  him  as  the  rep¬ 
resentative  of  Rome,  and  by  sundering  the  ties  which  divided  the 
allegiance  due  wholly  to  the  church. 

The  opportunity  to  effect  a  reformation  presented  itself  when  the 
young  king,  Edgar  the  Pacific,  in  963  violated  all  the  dictates  of 
honor  and  religion  in  his  adventure  with  the  nun  at  Wilton.  Her 
resistance  attested  her  innocence,  and  the  birth  of  a  daughter  did 
not  prevent  her  subsequent  canonization  as  St.  Wilfreda;  but  Edgar’s 
crime  and  remorse  were  only  the  more  heightened.  When  the  terror- 
stricken  king  sought  pardon  and  absolution,  Dunstan  was  prepared 
with  his  conditions.  Seven  years  of  penitence,  during  which  he  was 
to  abstain  from  wearing  the  crown,  was  the  personal  infliction  imposed 
on  him,  but  the  most  important  portion  of  the  sentence  was  that  by 
which  the  vices  of  the  king  were  to  be  redeemed  by  the  enforced 
virtues  of  his  subjects.  He  promised  the  founding  of  monasteries 
and  the  reformation  of  the  clergy ;  and  his  implicit  obedience  to  the 
demands  of  his  ghostly  judge  is  shown,  perhaps,  less  in  the  fact  that 
his  coronation  did  not  take  place  until  973,  than  in  the  active  mea¬ 
sures  immediately  set  on  foot  with  respect  to  the  morals  of  the  eccle¬ 
siastics.1 

That  their  morals,  indeed,  needed  reformation  is  the  unanimous 
testimony  of  all  the  chroniclers  of  the  period.  Among  all  the 
monasteries  of  England,  formerly  so  noted  for  their  zeal  and  pros¬ 
perity,  only  those  of  Glastonbury  and  Abingdon  were  inhabited  by 
monks.2  The  rest  had  fallen  into  ruin,  or  were  occupied  by  the 
secular  clergy,  with  their  wives,  or  worse,  and  were  notorious  as 
places  of  the  most  scandalous  dissipation  and  disorder.3  So  low  was 
the  standard  of  morality  that  priests  even  scrupled  not  to  put  away 
the  wives  of  whom  they  grew  tired,  and  to  form  new  connections,  of 
open  and  public  adultery;4  and  so  common  had  this  become  that  a 


1  Osbern.  Yit.  S. 
Florent.  "Wigorn. 


Dunstan.  c.  35. — 
ann.  964,  973. — 
Matt.  Westmonast.  ann.  963. 


2  Yit.  S.  JEthelwoldi  c.  14. 

3  Si  ista  solerti  scrutinio  curassetis* 
non  tam  horrenda  et  abominanda  ad 
aures  nostras  de  clericis  pervenissent 
.  .  .  dicam  dolens  quo  modo  diffluant 
in  commessationibus,  in  ebrietatibus,  in 
cubilibus  et  impudicitiis,  ut  jam  domus 
clericorum  putentur  prostibula  mere- 
tricum,  conciliabulum  histrionum  .  .  . 
Ad  hoc  ergo  exbauserunt  patres  nostri 


thesauros  suos  ?  ad  hoc  fiscus  regius, 
detractis  redditibus  multis  elargitus  est  ? 
ad  hoc  ecclesiis  Christi  agros  et  posses- 
siones  regalis  munificentia  contulit,  ut 
deliciis  clericorum  meretrices  ornentur  ? 
luxuriosas  convivse  praeparentur  ?  canes 
ac  aves  et  talia  ludicra  comparentur? 
Hoc  milites  clamant,  plebs  submurmu- 
rat,  mimi  cantant  et  saltant,  et  vos 
negligitis,  vos  parcitis,  vos  dissimulatis. 
— Oratio  Edgari  ann.  969  (Spelman. 
Concil.  I.  477). 

4  Yit.  S.  yEthflwold.  c.  12. 


168 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


code  of  ecclesiastical  law,  probably  drawn  up  about  this  time, 
reproves  this  systematic  bigamy,  and  appears  to  tacitly  authorize 
marriage  as  legitimate  and  honorable.1  One  author  declares  that 
none  but  paupers  could  be  found  willing  to  bind  themselves  by 
monastic  vows;2  and  another  asserts,  with  every  show  of  reason,  that 
the  clergy  were  not  only  not  superior  to  the  laity  in  any  respect,  but 
were  even  far  worse  in  the  scandals  of  their  daily  life.3 

When  King  Edgar  made  his  peace  with  the  church  by  consenting 
to  the  vicarious  penitence  of  the  priesthood,  three  rigid  and  austere 
monks  were  the  ardent  ministers  of  the  royal  determination.  Of  St. 
Dunstan,  the  primate  of  England,  I  have  already  spoken.  St. 
Ethelwold,  his  pupil,  Abbot  of  Abingdon,  was  elevated  to  the  see  of 
Winchester,  and  commenced  the  movement  by  expelling  the  occupants 
of  the  monastery  there.  A  few  who  consented  to  take  monastic 
vows  were  allowed  to  remain,  and  the  remainder  were  replaced  by 
monks;  but  even  St.  Ethelwold’s  rigor  had  to  bend  to  the  depravity 
of  the  age,  and  he  was  forced  to  relax  the  rigidity  of  discipline  in 
non-essentials  in  order  to  obtain  recruits  of  a  better  class.4  The 
difficulties  he  encountered  are  indicated  by  the  legend  which  relates 
that  he  was  poisoned  in  his  wine  and  carried  from  table  to  his  couch 
in  excruciating  torment,  -where  he  lay  hopeless  till,  reproaching  him¬ 
self  with  want  of  faith,  he  repeated  the  text — “Et  si  mortiferum 
quid  biberint,  non  eis  nocebitur,’-  and  was  cured  on  the  instant.5 
That  his  canons  were  quite  capable  of  such  an  attempt  may  be 
assumed  from  the  description  given  of  them  in  the  bull  procured  by 
Dunstan  from  John  XIII.,  authorizing  their  ejection  by  the  king. 
The  pope  does  not  hesitate  to  stigmatize  them  as  vessels  of  the  devil, 
hateful  to  all  good  Christians  on  account  of  their  inveterate  and  in¬ 
eradicable  wickedness.6 

The  third  member  of  the  reforming  triumvirate  was  St.  Oswald, 


1  “  Gif  preorst  ewenan  forlaete  and 
oftre  nime,  anaj?ema  sit”  (Leg.  Pres- 
byt.  Northumbriens.  c.  35).  Spelman’s 
translation  of  this  “Si  presbyter  con- 
cubinam  suam  dimiserit  et  aliam  acce- 
perit  anathema  sit”  (Concil.  I.  498)  is 
perhaps  hardly  correct.  Cwene  can  be 
interpreted  in  either  a  good  or  a  bad 
sense,  as  a  wife  or  a  mistress ;  and  the 
terms  of  the  law  show  that  the  connec¬ 
tion  was  a  recognized  one,  the  sin  con¬ 
sisting  in  disregarding  it.  If  the  priest’s 
companion  were  only  a  concubine,  his 


guilt  would  not  be  measurably  increased 
by  merely  changing  his  unlawful  con¬ 
sort. 

2  Chron.  de  Abbat.  Abbendoniae  , 
(Chron.  Abingdon.  II.  279). 

3  Osberni  Yit.  S.  Dunstan.  c.  36. 

*  Chron.  de.  Abbat.  Abbendon.  loc. 
cit. 

5  Yit.  S.  vEthelwold.  c.  14,  15. 

6  Johannis  PP.  XIII.  Epist.  xxii. 


SECULAR  CLERGY  ASSAILED. 


169 


Bishop  of  Worcester,  who  undertook  a  similar  transformation  of  the 
clergy  occupying  the  monastery  of  St.  Mary  in  his  cathedral  city. 
Many  promises  they  made  to  conform  to  his  wishes,  and  many  times 
they  eluded  the  performance,  till,  losing  patience  with  the  prolonged 
procrastination,  he  one  day  entered  the  chapel  with  a  quantity  of 
monkish  habits  as  they  were  vigorously  chanting  “  Servite  Domino 
in  timore,”  when  he  made  practical  application  of  the  text  by  forc¬ 
ing  them  to  put  on  the  garments  and  take  the  vows  on  the  spot, 
under  the  alternative  of  instant  expulsion.1 

These  proceedings  met  the  unqualified  approbation  of  Edgar,  who 
in  964,  by  his  “Charter  of  Oswalde’s  Law,”  confirmed  the  ejection 
of  the  recusants  who  refused  to  part  with  their  wives,  and  transferred 
all  their  rights  and  possessions  to  the  newcomers.  In  the  same 
document  he  boasted  that  he  had  instituted  forty-seven  abbeys  of 
monks  and  nuns,  and  that  he  hoped  to  increase  the  number  to  fifty.2 
The  same  year  a  similar  summary  process  was  carried  out  in  the 
convents  of  Chertsey  and  Winchester;3  and  in  966  Edgar  was  able 
to  boast  of  the  numerous  religious  houses  throughout  England  which 
he  had  purified  by  replacing  lascivious  clerks  with  pious  monks.4 

These  efforts,  however,  tended  only  to  restore  the  monastic  founda¬ 
tions  to  their  original  position,  and  left  the  secular  clergy  untouched, 
except  in  so  far  as  a  few  of  them  were  deprived  of  the  comfortable 
quarters  which  they  had  usurped  in  the  abbeys.  This  immunity  it 
was  no  part  of  Dunstan’s  plan  to  permit,  and  accordingly  Edgar 
issued  a  series  of  laws  restoring  the  obsolete  ecclesiastical  discipline 
throughout  his  kingdom.  By  this  code  a  lapse  from  virtue  on  the 
part  of  a  priest  or  monk  was  visited  with  the  same  penalty  as  homi¬ 
cide,  with  a  fast  of  ten  years ;  for  a  deacon  the  period  of  penitence 
was  seven  years ;  for  the  lower  grades,  six  years.  The  monk,  priest, 
or  deacon  who  maintained  relations  with  his  wife  was  subjected  to 
the  same  punishment ;  but  there  is  no  mention  of  degradation  or 
deprivation  of  benefice.5 

The  struggle  was  long,  and  at  one  time  the  three  reformers  seem 
to  have  grown  wearied  with  the  stubborn  resistance  which  they  met, 
while  the  zeal  of  King  Edgar  grew  more  fiery  as,  with  the  true  spirit 


1  Concil.  sub  Dunstano  (Spelman.  I. 
480). 

*  ASdgari  Charta  de  Oswalde’s  Law 
(Spelman.  I.  433). 

3  Anglo-Saxon  Chron.  ann.  964. 


4  Monach.  Hydens.  Leg.  c.  8,  9  (Spel¬ 
man.  I.  438). 

5  Canon,  sub  Edgaro — Mod.  impo- 
nend.  Pcenitent.  c.  28,  29  (Thorpe,  II. 
273). 


170 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


of  the  huntsman,  he  followed  up  the  prey,  his  ardor  increasing  as 
the  chase  grew  more  difficult.  In  969  he  eloquently  addressed 
Dunstan,  Ethelwold,  and  Oswald,  blaming  their  lukewarmness  in 
the  good  cause,  and  promising  them  every  support  and  assistance  in 
removing  this  opprobrium  from  the  church.1  Stimulated  by  these 
reproaches,  Dunstan  summoned  a  council  which  adopted  a  canon 
depriving  unchaste  priests  of  their  benefices.2  Still  the  conflict  con¬ 
tinued,  and  a  charter  dated  in  974,  the  last  year  of  Edgar’s  reign, 
shows  that  he  persevered  to  the  end  with  unabated  zeal.3 


The  contumacious  clerks  may  have  been  silenced ;  they  were  not 
subdued,  and  they  but  waited  their  opportunity.  It  came  in  975, 
with  the  early  death  of  Edgar  and  with  the  dissensions  caused  by 
his  widow,  Elfritha,  who  endeavored  to  deprive  of  the  succession  his 
eldest  son,  the  youthful  Edward,  fruit  of  a  former  marriage.  During 
the  confusion,  the  ejected  priests  banded  together  and  bribed  Elf  here, 
the  powerful  Ealdorman  of  Mercia,  together  with  some  other  mag¬ 
nates,  to  espouse  their  cause.  In  many  abbeys  the  regulars  were 
expelled  and  the  priests  with  their  wives  were  reinstated.  In  East 
Anglia,  however,  the  nobles  took  sides  with  the  monks,  and,  rising 
in  arms,  valiantly  defended  the  monasteries.  At  length,  on  the 
accession  of  Edward,  a  council  was  assembled  to  make  final  dispo¬ 
sition  of  the  question.  The  married  priests  were  present,  and  prom¬ 
ised  amendment ;  their  noble  protectors  pleaded  earnestly  for  them  ; 
the  boy-king  was  moved,  and  was  about  to  pronounce  in  their  favor, 
when  a  miracle  preserved  the  purity  of  the  church.  The  council 
was  sitting  in  the  refectory  of  the  monastery  of  Hyde,  the  head¬ 
quarters  of  the  ascetic  party ;  Edward  and  Dunstan  were  enthroned 
separately  from  the  rest,  with  their  backs  to  a  wall  on  which,  between 
them,  hung  a  small  crucifix.  At  the  critical  moment,  just  as  the 
king  was  yielding,  the  crucifix  spoke,  in  a  low  tone  inaudible  to  all 
save  Edward  and  the  primate,  “Let  not  this  thing  be  done” — the 
mandate  was  imperative,  and  the  married  clergy  lost  their  cause.4 

Still  the  stubborn  priests  and  their  patrons  held  out,  and  another 
miracle  was  necessary — this  time  a  more  impressive  one.  A  second 
council  was  called  to  discuss  the  matter,  and  was  held  at  Caine  in 
978.  During  the  heat  of  the  argument  the  floor  gave  way,  carrying 


1  Oratio  Edgari  (Spcdman.  I.  476). 

2  Spelman.  I.  479. 

3  Guillel.  Malmesbur.  Lib.  n.  c.  8. 


4  Florent.  Wigorn.  ann.  975. — Matt. 
AVestmonast.  Lib.  ill.  c.  18. — Chron. 
Winton.  (Spelman.  I.  490-2). 


171 


FAILURE  OF  DUNSTAN’S  REFORMS. 


with  it  the  whole  assembly,  except  St.  Dunstan,  who  remained  tri¬ 
umphantly  and  miraculously  perched  upon  a  joist,  while  his  adver¬ 
saries  lay  groaning  below,  in  every  variety  of  mutilation.1  His 
triumph,  however,  was  but  short.  The  same  year  the  pious  child 
Edward  perished  through  the  intrigues  of  Elfritha,  whose  son,  Eth- 
elred  the  Unready,  succeeded  to  the  throne.  The  mixed  political 
and  religious  character  of  these  events  is  shown  by  the  canonization 
of  Edward,  who,  though  yet  a  child,  was  regarded  as  a  martyr  by 
the  ascetics,  whose  cause  he  had  espoused. 

As  Elfritha  had  evidently  sought  the  alliance  of  the  secular  clergy 
to  strengthen  her  party,  her  success  proved  disastrous  to  the  cause 
of  reform.  The  respite  of  peace,  too,  which  had  blessed  the  island 
during  the  vigorous  reigns  of  Athelstan  the  Magnificent  and  Edgar 
the  Pacific,  gave  place  to  the  ravages  invited  by  the  feeble  and  vacil¬ 
lating  policy  of  Ethelred  the  Unready ;  the  incursions  of  the  pagan 
Danes  became  more  and  more  frequent  and  terrible ;  and  what  little 
respect  had  been  inculcated  for  the  strictness  of  discipline  was  speedily 
forgotten  in  the  anarchy  which  ensued. 

The  efforts  of  the  reformers  appear  to  have  extended  even  to  the 
British  churches  of  Wales,  which  had  followed  Saxon  example  in 
abandoning  celibacy.  The  Brut  y  Tywysogion  relates  that  about 
the  year  861  the  priests  were  forbidden  to  marry  without  dispensa¬ 
tion  from  the  pope ;  but  they  did  not  submit,  and  the  disturbances 
thus  provoked  rendered  necessary  the  abandonment  of  the  effort, 
so  that  sacerdotal  marriage  continued  unchecked.2  We  shall  see 
hereafter  that  in  the  Principality  the  custom  remained  in  full  vigor 
until  the  thirteenth  century  was  well  advanced. 

How  thoroughly  the  work  of  Dunstan  and  Edgar  was  undone  in 
England  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  efforts  made  not  long  after, 
with  the  consent  of  Ethelred,  to  introduce  some  feeble  restraints  upon 
the  prevailing  immorality.  About  the  year  1006  we  find  the  chief 
monastery  of  England,  Christ  Church  at  Canterbury,  in  full  posses¬ 
sion  of  the  secular  clergy,  whose  irregularities  were  so  flagrant  that 
even  Ethelred  was  forced  to  expel  them,  and  to  fill  their  places  with 
monks.3  What  was  the  condition  of  discipline  among  the  secular 


1  Matt.  Westmonast.  Lib.  in.  c.  18. 
Henry  of  Huntingdon,  however  (Lib. 
V.  ann.  978),  who,  as  a  secular  priest 
and  the  son  of  a  priest,  did  not  look 
upon  the  labors  of  St.  Dunstan  with 
much  favor,  insinuates  that  the  accident 
was  intended  to  foreshow  that  the  as¬ 


sembled  wisdom  and  power  of  England 
were  about  to  fall  similarly  from  the 
grace  of  God. 

2  Haddan  &  Stubbs  I.  286. 

3  Privileg.  Reg.  Ethel redi  (Spelman. 
I.  504). 


172 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


priests  may  be  guessed  from  the  reformatory  efforts  of  St.  iElfric, 
who  was  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  from  995  to  1006.  In  his  series 
of  canons  the  first  eight  are  devoted  to  inculcating  the  necessity  of 
continence ;  after  quoting  the  Nicene  canon,  he  feels  it  to  be  so  much 
at  variance  with  the  habits  and  customs  of  the  age,  that  he  actually 
deprecates  the  surprise  of  his  clergy  at  hearing  a  rule  so  novel  and 
so  oppugnant  to  the  received  practice;  “  as  though  there  was  no 
danger  in  priests  living  as  married  men;”  he  anticipates  the  argu¬ 
ments  which  they  will  bring  against  him,  and  refutes  them  with  more 
gravity  than  success.1  There  is  also  extant,  under  the  name  of  St. 
iElfric,  a  pastoral  epistle,  which  is  regarded  as  supposititious  by 
some  critics;  but  its  passages  on  this  subject  are  too  similar  in  spirit 
to  the  canons  of  iElfric  to  be  reasonably  rejected.  They  show  how 
hopeless  was  the  effort  to  maintain  the  purity  desired  by  the  ecclesi¬ 
astical  authorities,  and  that  entreaties  and  exhortations  were  uttered 
merely  from  a  sense  of  duty,  and  with  hardly  an  expectation  of  com¬ 
manding  attention.  “  This,  to  you,  priests,  will  seem  grievous,  be¬ 
cause  ye  have  your  misdeeds  in  custom,  so  that  it  seems  to  yourselves 
that  ye  have  no  sin  in  so  living  in  female  intercourse  as  laymen ;  and 
say  that  Peter  the  Apostle  had  a  wife  and  children.  .  .  .  Beloved, 
we  cannot  now  forcibly  compel  you  to  chastity,  but  we  admonish 
you,  nevertheless,  that  ye  observe  chastity,  so  as  Christ's  ministers 
ought,  in  good  reputation,  to  the  pleasure  of  God.”2 

That  these  well-meant  homilies  effected  little  in  reforming  the 
hearts  of  so  obdurate  a  generation  becomes  manifest  by  the  proceed¬ 
ings  of  the  council  of  Enham,  held  by  King  Ethelred  in  1009.  The 
priests  are  there  entreated,  by  the  obedience  which  they  owe  to  God, 
to  observe  the  chastity  which  they  know  to  be  due.  Yet  so  great 
was  the  laxity  prevailing  that  some  are  stated  to  have  two  or  more 
wives,  and  many  to  be  in  the  habit  of  changing  their  spouses  at 
pleasure,  in  violation  of  all  Christian  law.  The  council  was  appar¬ 
ently,  however,  powerless  to  repress  these  scandals  by  an  adequate 
punishment,  and  contented  itself  with  promising  to  those  who  lived 
chastely  the  privileges  and  legal  status  of  nobles,  while  the  vicious 


1  ^Elfrici  Canon,  c.  i.-viii.  (Thorpe, 
II.  345).  “Quasi  periculosum  non 
esset  sacerdotem  vivere  more  conjugati. 
Sed  dicetis  euin  baud  posse  carere 
muliebribus  servitiis.  .  Respondeo,  quo- 
nam  pacto  vitam  transegerunt  sancti 


olim  viri  absque  femina  vel  uxore,”  &c. 
(Spelman  I.  573). — Spelman’s  MS.  was 
defective  ;  that  in  Thorpe  is  perfect. 


2  yElfric’s  Pastoral  Epistle,  c.  32,  33 
(Thorpe,  II.  377). 


DISORDERS  OF  THE  PRIESTHOOD. 


173 


were  vaguely  threatened  with  the  loss  of  the  grace  of  God  and 

man.1 

The  injunctions  of  the  council  as  regards  the  regular  clergy, 
though  not  particularly  specific  in  their  nature,  show  that  even  the 
monks  had  not  responded  to  the  benefits  conferred  upon  them  by 
Edgar  the  Pacific,  nor  fulfilled  the  expectations  of  the  pious  Dunstan. 
An  expression  employed,  indeed,  leads  the  learned  Spelman  to  sug¬ 
gest  that  there  possibly  were  two  orders  of  monks,  the  one  married 
and  the  other  unmarried;  but  this  is  probably  without  foundation.2 

Such  was  the  condition  of  the  church  when  the  increasing  assaults 
of  the  Northman  finally  culminated  in  overthrowing  the  house  of 
Cerdic,  and  placing  the  hated  Dane  upon  the  throne  of  England. 
Cnut’s  long  and  prosperous  reign,  and  his  earnest  veneration  for  the 
church,  as  shown  by  his  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  may  perhaps  have 
succeeded  in  removing  some  of  the  grosser  immoralities  of  the  clergy, 
but  that  marriage  was  still  openly  and  unrestrainedly  practised  by 
those  in  orders  is  evident.  The  ecclesiastical  laws  of  Cnut  exhort 
priests  to  chastity  in  precisely  the  same  words,  and  with  the  same 
promises  as  the  canons  of  the  council  of  Enham,  but  do  not  allude 


1  Omnes  ministros  Dei,  prsesertim 
sacerdotes,  obsecramus  et  docemus,  ut 
Deo  obedientes,  castitatem  colant,  et 
contra  iram  Domini  se  hoc  modo  muni- 
ant  et  tueantur.  Certius  enim  norint 
quod  non  habeant  debite  ob  aliquam 
coitus  causam  uxoris  consortium.  In 
more  tamen  est,  ut  quidam  duas,  qui- 
dam  plures  babeat ;  et  nonnullus  quam- 
vis  earn  dimiserit  quam  nuper  habuit, 
aliam  tamen,  ipsa  vivente,  accipit,  quod 
nulla  Christianorum  lege  est  permissum. 
Dimittens  autem  et  castitatem  recolens, 
e  eoelo  assequetur  misericordiam,  in 
mundo  etiam  venerationem,  adeo  ut 
juribus  et  tributis  habeatur  Thaini 
dignus  cum  in  vita  turn  in  funere.  Qui 
autem  ordinis  sui  regulam  abdicaverit, 
omni  cum  apud  Deum  turn  apud  homi¬ 
nes  gratia  exuatur. — Concil.  ^Enham. 
c.  2.  (Spelman.  I.  514-5). 

I  give  the  translation  of  Spelman,  as 
being  more  faithful  in  spirit,  although 
less  literal  than  that  of  Thorpe;  for 
though  the  expression  11  wifes  gemanan” 
may  not  be  especially  limited  to  wifely 
relations,  yet  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
passage  shows  that  the  women  con¬ 


cerned  wrere  not  merely  concubines,  but 
were  entitled  to  the  consideration  of 
legal  wives. 

The  thane-right  promised  to  those 
who  should  reform  their  lives  was  one 
of  the  recognized  privileges  of  the 
church.  In  a  list  of  wer-gilds,  anterior 
to  the  period  under  consideration  by 
about  a  century,  the  wer-gild  for  the 
priest — “  maesse-fegnes  ’  ’  is  the  same  as 
that  for  the  secular  noble — “  woruld- 
>egnes  ”  (Thorpe,  I.  187). 

2  “  Munecas  and  mvnecena  canoni- 

«/ 

cas  and  nunnan  ”  (Concil.  HSnhani.  c. 
1).  Spelman  thinks  that  the  mynecena 
were  perhaps  the  wives  or  concubines 
of  monks  (Concil.  I.  530).  Mynecen 
is  merely  the  feminine  of  munuc,  a 
monk;  Thorpe  translates  it  as  “myn- 
chens,”  and  suggests  that  the  “  myne¬ 
cena  ”  were  merely  the  younger  nuns, 
not  quite  so  strictly  governed  as  the 
elder  “  nunnan.”  To  this  opinion  Bos- 
worth  (Dictionary,  s.  v.  nunne )  seems 
to  incline.  It  would  appear  to  be  so 
from  chapter  xv.  (be  Mynecenan)  of 
the  “  Institutes  of  Polity  ”  (Thorpe, 
II.  322). 


174 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


to  the  habit  of  keeping  a  plurality  of  wives;  while,  in  the  same 
chapter,  a  warning  to  the  whole  people  against  unlawful  concubinage 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  clergy  and  laity  were  bound  by  rules 
identical  in  strictness.1 

That  the  rule  of  celibacy  was  recognized  as  only  binding  on  the 
regulars,  or  monks,  and  that  the  secular  priesthood  were  at  full 
liberty  to  marry  is  evident  from  the  system  of  purgation  enjoined  on 
them  by  the  same  code.  The  priest  who  was  also  a  monk  (sacerdos 
regulariter  vivens — sacerd  \>e  regollice  libbe),  could  clear  himself  from 
an  accusation  in  a  simple  suit  by  merely  saying  mass,  and  taking  the 
communion,  while  the  secular  priest  (plebeius  sacerdos — msesse- 
preorst  j>e  regol-lif  ngebbe)  is  only  equal  to  the  deacon-monk  (diaconus 
regularis — diacon  \>e  regollice  libbe),  requiring  two  of  his  peers  as 
compurgators.2  The  significance  of  the  distinction  thus  drawn  is 
rendered  clear  by  the  version  of  the  passage  in  a  curious  Latin  text 
of  the  code  published  by  Kolderup-Rosenvinge.  The  chapter  is 
divided  into  two,  the  first  one  with  the  rubric  “De  Sacerdotibus,” 
and  commencing  “Si  contigerit  presbyterum  regulariter  et  caste 
viventem/'  &c.,  while  the  second  is  headed  “De  vulgare  sacerdote 
non  casto ,”  the  meaning  of  which  is  defined  in  the  expression  “Si 
vulgaris  presbyter  qui  non  regulariter  vivit.  ’  ’ 3  It  is  thus  evident 
that  purity  was  expected  from  those  only  who  had  entered  into  the 
obligations  of  monastic  life,  and  also  that  the  reforms  of  Dunstan 
had  caused  the  ministers  of  the  altar  to  be  frequently  selected  from 
among  the  monks. 

To  this  period  are  also,  in  all  probability,  to  be  attributed  the 
“Institutes  of  Polity,  civil  and  ecclesiastical,'"  to  which  reference  has 
been  made  in  the  preceding  section  as  blaming  priests  for  decorating 


1  Cnutes  Domas  c.  vi.  (Thorpe,  I. 
364). 

2  Cnutes  Domas  c.  v.  (Thorpe,  I. 

362).  To  appreciate  the  full  weight  of 
the  privileges  thus  distributed,  we  should 
bear  in  mind  how  completely,  in  those 
times,  the  various  classes  of  society 
were  distinguished  by  the  facilities  af¬ 
forded  them  of  acquittal  in  cases  of  ac¬ 
cusation,  and  by  the  graduated  scale  of 
fines  established  for  injuries  inflicted  on 
them.  These  were  most  substantial 
advantages  when  the  wer-gild,  or  blood- 
money,  was  the  only  safeguard  guaran¬ 
teed  by  law  for  life  and  limb,  and  were 
most  important  privileges  of  the  aristo¬ 


cracy.  This  constitutes  the  thane-right 
alluded  to  in  the  council  of  Enham, 
and  retained  by  the  laws  of  Cnut,  as 
attaching  to  priests  who  preserve  their 
chastity.  Thus  “sacramentum  presby- 
teri  regulariter  viventis  tantumdem 
valeat  sicut  liberalis  hominis  ”  (Cnuti 
Leg.  Sa?cul.  c.  128 — ed.  Kolderup- 
Kosenvinge) — the  expression  “liberalis 
homo  ”  being,  in  this  version,  used  for 
the  “  taynus  ”  or  thane  of  the  other 
texts. 

3  Cnuti  Leg.  Eccles.  c.  8,  9.  (Kol¬ 
derup-Rosenvinge,  Haunhe,  1826,  p. 
12). 


SACERDOTAL  MARRIAGE  ESTABLISHED. 


175 


their  wives  with  the  ornaments  belonging  to  their  churches.  Unable 
to  denounce  efficient  penalties  for  the  prevention  of  such  evil  prac¬ 
tices,  the  author  is  obliged  to  content  himself  with  invoking  future 
punishment  from  heaven,  in  vague  and  meaningless  threats 
— aA  priest’s  wife  is  nothing  but  a  snare  of  the  devil,  and  he  who 
is  ensnared  thereby  on  to  his  end,  he  will  be  seized  fast  by  the 
devil.” 1 

From  all  this  it  is  evident  that  the  memory  of  the  ancient  canons 
was  not  forgotten,  and  that  their  observance  was  still  urged  by  some 
ardent  churchmen,  but  that  the  customs  of  the  period  had  rendered 
them  virtually  obsolete,  and  that  no  sufficient  means  existed  of  en¬ 
forcing  obedience.  If  open  scandals  and  shameless  bigamy  and 
concubinage  could  be  restrained,  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  were 
evidently  content.  Celibacy  could  not  be  enjoined  as  a  law,  but 
was  rendered  attractive  by  surrounding  it  with  privileges  and  immu¬ 
nities  denied  to  him  who  yielded  to  the  temptations  of  the  flesh,  and 
who  thus  in  some  degree  assimilated  his  sacred  character  to  that  of 
the  laity. 

The  Saxon  church  thus  was  practically  regardless  of  the  rule  of 
celibacy  when  Edward  the  Confessor  ascended  the  throne.  The 
ascetic  piety  of  that  prince  and  his  Norman  education  alike  led  him 
to  abhor  the  sensual  indulgences  in  which  he  found  his  subjects 
plunged,  and  he  attached  himself  almost  exclusively  to  the  horde  of 
Norman  monks  who  flocked  to  his  court  from  across  the  Channel. 
Their  influence  was  all-powerful,  and  though  reasons  of  the  highest 
state  necessity  forced  him  to  ally  himself  in  marriage  with  Edith, 
daughter  of  the  puissant  Duke  Godwin,  whom  Edward  hated  with 
all  the  energy  of  his  feeble  nature,  it  was  not  difficult  for  his  artful 
ghostly  counsellors  to  persuade  him  that  a  vow  of  virginity,  taken 
and  kept  amid  the  seductions  of  a  throne,  wTould  insure  his  glory  in 
this  world  and  his  salvation  in  the  next.  A  minstrel  historian  de¬ 
scribes  at  length  the  engagement  of  perpetual  chastity  entered  into 
between  Edward  and  Edith  at  their  marriage,  and  though  he  mentions 
the  popular  derision  to  which  this  exposed  the  royal  monk  at  the 


1  Institutes  of  Polity,  &c.,  c.  16,  19,  are  used  interchangeably  to  denote  the 
23  (Thorpe,  II.  325,  329,  337).  It  is  consorts  of  priests, 
observable  that  the  words  wif  and  cwene 


176 


SAXON  ENGLAND. 


hands  of  a  gross  and  brutal  generation,  he  is  firmly  persuaded  that 
the  crown  of  martyrdom  was  worthily  won  and  worn — 

Par  veincre  charnel  desir, 

Bein  deit  estre  clamez  martir. 

Ne  sai  cunter  en  nul  estoire 
Rei  ki  feist  si  grant  victoire, 

Sa  char,  diable  e  mund  venqui, 

Ki  sont  troi  fort  enimi.1 


How  little  the  royal  pair  expected  this  example  to  be  followed  and 
how  relaxed  were  all  the  rules  of  monastic  discipline  is  shown  by  an 
anecdote  of  the  period.  The  austere  Gervinus,  Abbot  of  St.  Riquier 
in  Ponthieu  was  always  welcomed  by  them  when  he  visited  England, 
and  on  one  occasion  Queen  Edith  offered  to  kiss  him.  The  Abbot’s 
rigidity  overcame  his  courtliness  and  he  refused  the  royal  salutation, 
to  the  great  indignation  of  the  Queen,  who  ordered  certain  gifts 
which  she  had  set  apart  for  him  to  be  withdrawn.  Edward,  however, 
approved  of  the  action  of  the  monk,  and  after  Edith  had  been  made 
to  understand  his  motives  she  not  only  joined  in  applauding  him  but 
demanded  that  a  similar  rule  should  be  made  imperative  on  all  the 
monks  of  England.2 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  Edward  made  efforts  to  effect  a  reform 
among  his  sensual  and  self-indulgent  subjects,  but  his  want  of  success 
is  developed  in  the  description  of  the  Saxon  clergy  at  the  time  of  the 
Conquest.  The  Norman  chroniclers  speak  of  them  as  abandoned  to 
sloth,  ignorance,  and  the  lusts  of  the  flesh;  even  monastic  institu¬ 
tions  were  matters  rather  of  tradition  than  of  actual  existence,  and 
the  monks  themselves  were  hardly  distinguishable  by  their  mode  of 
life  from  the  laity.3  There  doubtless  may  be  some  contemptuous  ex¬ 
aggeration  in  this,  and  yet  one  author  of  the  period,  who  is  wTholly 


1  Lives  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  pp. 
60-1  (Chron.  &  Memor.  of  Gr.  Brit.). 
In  the  same  curious  collection  there  is 
another  life  of  Edward  by  a  follower 
of  Queen  Edith  and  dedicated  to  her, 
the  writer  of  which  freely  attributes 
the  worst  motives  to  the  intrigues  of 
the  Norman  monks  in  separating  her 
from  the  king.  See,  for  instance,  his 
account  of  her  immurement  in  the 
abbey  of  Wilton  (Op.  cit.  p.  403). 

Edward’s  virginity  is  likewise  at¬ 
tested  by  the  MS.  Monast.  Ramesiens. 
(Spelman.  I.  637) — “  Ccelibem  pudi- 
citiae  florein,  quern  inter  regni  delicias 


et  inter  amplexus  conjugales  .  .  .  con- 
servarat,  virtutemque  perpetuo  floribus 
immiscuit  paradisi.”  In  this,  however, 
Edward  only  imitated  the  asceticism 
ascribed  to  the  Emperor  St.  Henry  II. 
and  his  Empress  St.  Cunegunda,  half  a 
century  earlier. 

2  Chron.  Centulens.  Lib.  iv.  c.  jxxii. 
(D’Achery  II.  345). 

3  Orderic.  Vital.  P.  n.  Lib.  iv.  c.  10. 
— The  testimony  of  William  of  Mal¬ 
mesbury  (I)e  Gest.  Regum  Lib.  in.)  is 
equally  emphatic. 


EDWARD  THE  CONFESSOR. 


177 


Saxon  in  his  feelings,  does  not  hesitate  to  attribute  the  ruin  of  the 
Saxon  monarchy  and  the  devastation  of  the  kingdom  to  the  just 
wrath  of  God,  provoked  by  the  vices  of  the  clergy.1 

The  rule  of  the  Normans  removed  England  from  her  isolation. 
Brought  into  the  commonwealth  of  Christendom  and  under  the  active 
supremacy  of  the  Holy  See,  her  history  henceforth  becomes  more 
closely  connected  with  the  general  ecclesiastical  movement  which 
received  its  irresistible  impulsion  about  this  period.  That  movement 
it  is  now  our  business  to  examine. 

1  Lives  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  p.  432. 


12 


XII. 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


In  a  previous  section  I  have  shown  the  laxity  prevailing  through¬ 
out  Continental  Europe  at  the  commencement  of  the  eleventh  century. 
It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  even  where  this  was  tacitly 
permitted,  it  was  openly  and  unreservedly  authorized.  The  per¬ 
versity  of  a  sinful  generation  might  render  impossible  the  enforce¬ 
ment  of  the  ancient  canons ;  they  might  even  he  forgotten  by  the 
worldly  and  unthinking ;  but  they  were  still  the  law  of  the  church, 
and  their  authority  was  still  admitted  by  some  ardent  devotees  who 
longed  to  restore  the  purity  of  earlier  ages.  Burckhardt,  who  was 
Bishop  of  Worms  from  the  year  1000  to  1025,  in  his  voluminous 
collection  of  canons,  gives  a  fair  selection  from  the  councils  and 
decretals  prohibiting  all  female  intercourse  to  the  clergy.1  Benedict 
VIII.  and  the  Emperor  St.  Henry  II. — whose  admiration  of  vir¬ 
ginity  was  evinced  by  the  personal  sacrifice  to  which  reference  has 
just  been  made — in  1022  endeavored  in  the  most  solemn  manner  to 
reform  the  universal  laxity.  At  the  synod  of  Pavia  a  series  of  canons 
was  adopted  pronouncing  sentence  of  deposition  upon  all  priests, 
deacons,  and  subdeacons  having  wives  or  concubines,  and  upon  all 
bishops  keeping  women  near  them,  while  special  stress  was  laid  upon 
the  continued  servitude  of  the  children  of  all  such  ecclesiastics  as 
were  serfs  of  the  church.2  These  canons,  signed  by  the  pope  and 
attendant  bishops,  were  laid  before  the  emperor,  wTho  indorsed  them 
with  his  sanction,  declared  them  to  be  municipal  as  well  as  ecclesi¬ 
astical  law,  promised  that  their  observance  should  be  enforced  by  the 
civil  magistrates,  and  thanked  Benedict  and  his  prelates  for  their 
vigilance  in  seeking  a  remedy  for  the  incontinence  of  the  clergy,  the 
evils  whereof  swept  like  a  storm  over  the  face  of  Christendom.3 

1  Burchardi  Decret.  Lib.  in.  c.  108-116. 

2  Synod.  Ticinens.  ann.  1022  c.  1,2,  3,  4. 

3  liespons  Imperatoris  in  Synod.  Ticinens. 


DEBASEMENT  OF  THE  PAPACY. 


179 


In  France,  the  long  reign  of  Robert  the  Pious  seems  to  have  been 
marked  with  almost  entire  indifference  to  the  subject,  but  the  acces¬ 
sion  of  his  son  Henry  I.  was  attended  with  a  strenuous  effort  to  effect 
a  reform.  The  council  of  Bourges,  held  in  November,  1031,  but 
four  months  after  the  death  of  Robert,  may  perhaps  have  been 
assembled  at  the  request  of  the  dying  monarch,  desirous  of  redeem¬ 
ing  his  own  sins  with  the  vicarious  penance  of  his  subjects.  It 
addressed  itself  vigorously  to  eradicating  the  evil  by  a  comprehensive 
series  of  measures,  admirably  adapted  to  the  end  in  view.  Priests, 
deacons,  and  subdeacons  were  forbidden  to  have  wives  or  concubines, 
and  all  such  consorts  were  ordered  to  be  dismissed  at  once  and  forever. 
Those  who  refused  obedience  were  to  be  degraded  to  the  rank  of 
lectors  or  chanters,  and  in  future  no  ecclesiastic  was  to  be  permitted 
to  take  either  wife  or  concubine.  A  vow  of  chastity  was  commanded 
as  a  necessary  prerequisite  to  assuming  the  subdiaconate,  and  no 
bishop  was  to  ordain  a  candidate  without  exacting  from  him  a  promise 
to  take  neither  wife  nor  concubine.  Children  of  the  clergy  in  orders, 
born  during  the  ministry  of  their  parents,  were  pronounced  incapable 
of  entering  the  church,  in  justification  of  which  was  cited  the  pro¬ 
vision  of  the  municipal  law  which  incapacitated  illegitimates  from 
receiving  inheritance  or  bearing  witness  in  court ;  but  those  who 
were  born  after  their  fathers  had  been  reduced  to  the  condition  of 
laymen  wTere  not  to  be  considered  as  the  children  of  ecclesiastics.1 

Nothing  could  be  more  reasonable  than  all  this,  considered  from 
the  high-church  stand-point,  and  nothing  better  adapted  to  effect  the 
object  in  view.  All  that  was  wanting  was  the  enforcement  of  the 
legislation — and  laws,  when  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  the  age,  are  not 
apt  to  be  enforced.  How  much  was  really  gained  by  the  united 
efforts  of  the  pope,  the  emperor,  and  the  Gallican  hierarchy  can 
readily  be  gathered  from  a  few  out  of  innumerable  incidents  afforded 
by  the  history  of  the  period. 

The  able  and  energetic,  though  unscrupulous,  Benedict  VIII.  was 
no  more,  and  the  great  House  of  Tusculum,  which  ruled  the  Eternal 
City,  had  filled  the  chair  of  St.  Peter  with  a  worthless  scion  of  their 
stock,  as  though  to  declare  their  contempt  for  the  lofty  pretensions 
of  the  Apostolic  Episcopate.  A  fit  descendant  of  the  infamous 
Marozia  and  Alberic,  Benedict  IX.,  a  child  of  ten  years  old  at  the 
time  of  his  elevation  in  1032,  grew  up  in  unrestrained  license,  and 


1  Concil.  Bituricens.  ann.  1031  c.  5,  6,  8,  10. 


180 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


shocked  even  the  dull  sensibilities  of  a  gross  and  barbarous  age  by 
the  scandals  of  bis  daily  life.1  The  popular  appreciation  of  his 
character  is  shown  by  the  legend  of  his  appearing  after  death  to  a 
holy  man,  in  the  figure  of  a  bear,  with  the  ears  and  tail  of  an  ass, 
and  declaring  that,  as  he  had  lived  in  bestiality,  so  he  was  destined 
to  wear  the  form  of  a  beast  and  to  suffer  fiery  torments  until  the 
Day  of  Judgment,  after  which  he  was  to  be  plunged,  body  and  soul, 
into  the  fathomless  pit  of  hell.2  When  the  Vicegerent  of  God,  the 
head  of  the  Christian  church,  was  thus  utterly  depraved,  the  pros¬ 
pect  of  reforming  the  corruption  of  the  clergy  was  not  promising, 
and  the  good  work  was  not  likely  to  be  prosecuted  with  vigor. 

Nor  w'ere  the  members  of  the  hierarchy  unwmrthy  of  their  superior. 
We  hear  of  Rainbaldo,  Bishop  of  Fiesole,  who,  not  contented  with 
numerous  concubines,  had  publicly  married  a  wife,  and  whose  chil¬ 
dren  were  established  as  a  wide-spread  and  powerful  family — and, 
what  is  perhaps  more  remarkable,  this  dissolute  prelate  was  gifted 
with  the  power  of  working  miracles.3  The  bishops,  indeed,  at  this 
period,  were  still  rather  warrior  nobles  than  Christian  ministers. 
Bisantio,  the  good  Bishop  of  Bari,  is  praised  quite  as  much  for  his 
terrible  prowess  in  battle  as  for  his  pious  benevolence  and  munifi¬ 
cence  ;  and  on  his  death,  in  1085,  his  flock  chose  a  military  official 
as  his  successor.4 

Descending  in  the  scale,  wTe  may  instance  the  priest  Marino,  who, 
though  he  lived  openly  with  his  wife,  was  a  noted  miracle-worker. 
Among  quaint  wonders  wrought  by  him  it  is  recorded  that  water 
rendered  holy  by  his  blessing,  wdien  sprinkled  over  the  cornfields, 
had  the  power  of  driving  away  all  caterpillars  and  other  noxious 
insects.  His  child,  Eleuchadio,  was  a  most  venerable  man,  wTho  sub¬ 
sequently,  as  abbot  of  the  monastery  of  the  Virgin  at  Fiano,  won 
the  esteem  and  respect  of  even  the  stern  Damiani  himself.5  In  fact, 
the  pious  Desiderius,  Abbot  of  Monte  Casino,  better  known  as  pope 
under  the  name  of  Victor  III.,  declares  that  throughout  Italy,  under 


1  Quoniam  infelicem  habuit  introi- 
tum,  infeliciorem  persensit  exitum. 
Horrendum  quippe  referri  turpitudo 
illius  conversationis  et  vitae.  —  Rad. 
Glabri  Lib.  v.  c.  5. 

2  Jobann.  Chron.  Angli®,  c.  47 

(Ludewig  Rel.  Msctorum.  XII.  145). 

Semper  enim  luxuri®  et  carnalibus 

illecebris  deditus  fuit. 


3  P.  Damiani  Opusc.  vi.  c.  18. 

4  Annal.  Barenses,  ann.  1035. — 
Shortly  after  this,  we  hear  of  two 
bishops  killed  in  battle  (Ibid.  ann. 
1041). 

5  P.  Damiani,  loc.  cit. 


LICENSE  ASSUMED  BY  THE  CLERGY. 


181 


the  pontificate  of  Benedict,  all  orders,  from  bishops  down,  without 
shame  or  concealment,  were  publicly  married  and  lived  with  their 
wives  as  laymen,  leaving  their  children  fully  provided  for  in  their 
wills;  and  what  rendered  the  disgrace  more  poignant  was  the  fact 
that  the  scandal  was  greatest  in  Rome  itself,  whence  the  light  of 
religion  and  discipline  had  formerly  illuminated  the  Christian  world.1 
Another  contemporary  writer  asserts  that  this  laxity  prevailed 
throughout  the  whole  of  Latin  Christendom,  sacerdotal  marriage 
being  everywhere  so  common  that  it  was  no  longer  punished  as 
unlawful,  and  scarcely  even  reprehended.2 

In  becoming  thus  universal  and  tacitly  permitted  it  was  not  in¬ 
compatible  with  the  most  fervent  piety;  and  though  it  may  be  an 
evidence  of  hierarchical  disorganization,  it  can  no  longer  be  considered 
as  indicating  of  itself  a  lowered  standard  of  morals  in  the  ministers 
of  the  church.  This  is  forcibly  illustrated  in  the  case  of  St.  Proco¬ 
pius,  selected  by  Duke  Ulric  of  Bohemia  as  the  first  abbot  of  the 
monastery  of  Zagow.  He  was  regularly  bred  to  the  church  under 
the  care  of  Bishop  Quirillus,  and  was  noted  for  the  rectitude  of  his 
deportment  in  the  priesthood;  yet  we  learn  that  he  wTas  married 
during  this  period,  when  we  are  told  that,  on  being  disgusted  with 
the  hollow  vanities  of  the  world,  he  abandoned  wife  and  friends  for 
the  solitude  of  a  hermit’s  cave.  Here  an  accidental  meeting  with 
Duke  Ulric,  while  hunting,  led  to  the  foundation  of  Zagow  and  to 
the  installation  of  Procopius  as  its  head.3 

Silently  the  church  seemed  to  acquiesce  in  the  violation  of  her 
canons,  until,  at  length,  she  appeared  content  if  her  ministers  would 
satisfy  themselves  with  reputable  marriage  and  avoid  the  grosser 
scandals.  When  Ulric,  Abbot  of  Tegernsee,  about  1041,  deplored 
the  evil  influence  of  a  priest  who  had  two  wives  living,  he  seems  to 
have  felt  that  lawful  marriage  might  be  tolerated,  but  that  polygamy 
was  of  evil  example  in  a  Christian  pastor.4  So  when  Albert  the 
Magnificent,  Archbishop  of  Hamburg,  was  accustomed  to  exhort  his 


1  Desiderii  Dialog,  de  Mirac  S.  Bene¬ 
dict.  Lib.  in.  (Script.  Rer.  Italicor.  Y. 
396). 

2  John,  a  disciple  of  St.  Peter  Da- 
miani,  in  alluding  to  the  prevailing 
twin  vices  of  simony  and  marriage, 
says  :  “  Quae  videlicet  pestes  tarn  per- 
niciosa  consuetudine  praevaluerant,  tam- 
que  impune  totam  ferme  ecclesiam  in 


omni  Romano  orbe  faedaverant,  ut  vix 
jam  reprehensorem,  tamquam  licite, 
formidarent.” — Yit.  S.  P.  Damiani  c. 
16. 

3  Cosmse  Pragens.  Chron.  Boem.  Lib. 
hi.  (Mencken.  Script.  Rer.  German. 
III.  p.  1782). 

4  Batthyani  Leg.  Eccles.  Hung.  I. 
335. 


182 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


clergy  to  continence  and  to  shun  the  pestiferous  society  of  women, 
his  worldly  wisdom  prompted  him  to  add  that,  if  they  were  unequal 
to  the  effort,  they  should  at  least  keep  unsullied  the  bonds  of  mar¬ 
riage  and  should  live  “si  non  caste,  tamen  caute.”1 

If  irregularities  such  as  these  existed,  they  are  not  justly  imputable 
to  the  church  itself.  It  can  scarcely  be  a  matter  of  wonder  if  the 
clergy,  in  assimilating  themselves  to  the  laity  as  regards  the  liberty 
of  wedlock,  should  also  have  adopted  the  license  which  in  that  law¬ 
less  age  rendered  the  marriage-tie  a  slender  protection  for  the  weak¬ 
ness  of  woman.  Though  it  was  indissoluble  according  to  the  teachings 
of  religion,  yet  the  church,  which  at  that  time  was  the  only  protector 
of  the  feeble  against  the  strong,  had  not  acquired  the  commanding 
authority  which  subsequently  enabled  it  to  enforce  its  decrees  every¬ 
where  and  on  all  occasions.  If,  under  a  vigorous  pope,  the  sentence 
of  excommunication  had  been  able  to  frighten  a  superstitious  monarch 
like  Robert  the  Pious,  yet  the  pontiffs  of  the  House  of  Tusculum 
were  not  men  to  trouble  themselves,  or  to  be  successful  had  they 
made  the  attempt,  to  rectify  the  wrongs  perpetrated  in  every  obscure 
baronial  castle  or  petty  hamlet  in  Europe.  The  isolation  and  inde¬ 
pendence  of  the  feudal  system  made  every  freeman,  so  to  speak,  the 
arbiter  of  his  own  actions.  The  wife  whose  charms  ceased  to  gratify 
the  senses  of  her  husband,  or  whose  temper  threatened  to  disturb  his 
equanimity,  stood  little  chance  of  retaining  her  position,  if  an 
opportunity  offered  of  replacing  her  to  advantage,  unless  she  was 
fortunate  in  having  kindred  able  to  resent  the  wrong  which  the  church 
and  the  law  were  powerless  to  prevent  or  to  punish.2  If,  then,  the 
clergy  occasionally  indulged  in  similar  practices,  the  evil  is  not 
attributable  to  the  license  of  marriage  which  they  had  usurped. 
That  license  had,  at  all  events,  borne  some  fruits  of  good,  for, 
during  its  existence,  we  hear  somewhat  less  of  the  system  of  concu¬ 
binage  so  prevalent  before  and  after  this  period,  and  there  is  no 
authentic  indication  of  the  nameless  horrors  so  suggestively  intimated 


1  Adam.  Bremens.  Gest.  Pontif.  Ham- 
maburg.  Schol.  ad  cap.  29  Lib.  hi. 

2  Perhaps  as  suggestive  an  illustration 
of  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  age 
as  can  well  be  given  is  afforded  by  a 
deed  executed  inl055  by  a  noble  count 
of  Catalonia  on  the  occasion  of  his 
marriage.  He  pledges  himself  not  to 


cast  off  his  bride,  except  for  infidelity 
— such  infidelity  not  being  plotted  for 
by  him — and  to  secure  the  performance 
of  this  promise  he  places  in  the  hands 
of  his.  father-in-law  four  castles,  to  be 
held  in  pledge,  subject  to  forfeiture  in 
case  of  his  violating  the  agreement. 
(Baluz.  Capit.  Francor.  Append.  Actor. 
Vet.  No.  148.) 


SAN  GIOVANNI  GUALBERTO. 


183 


by  the  restrictions  on  the  residence  of  relatives  enjoined  in  the  fre¬ 
quent  canons  promulgated  at  the  close  of  the  ninth  century. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  race  of  ascetics  was 
extinct.  Amid  the  license  which  prevailed  in  every  class,  there  were 
still  some  men  who,  disgusted  with  the  turbulent  and  dissolute  world, 
despairing  of  salvation  among  the  temptations  and  trials  of  active 
life  or  the  sloth  and  luxury  of  the  monastic  establishments,  sought 
the  path  to  heaven  in  solitude  and  maceration.  Such  men  could  not 
but  look  with  detestation  on  the  worldly  priests  who  divided  their 
thoughts  between  their  sacred  calling  and  the  cares  of  an  increasing 
household,  and  who  profaned  the  unutterable  mysteries  of  the  altar 
with  hearts  and  hands  not  kept  pure  from  the  lusts  of  the  flesh. 

Prominent  among  these  holy  anchorites  was  S.  Giovanni  Gual- 
berto,  who  fled  from  the  snares  of  the  world  to  the  forests  of  Camal- 
doli,  where  his  austerities,  his  holiness,  and  his  miracles  soon  attracted 
crowds  of  disciples,  who  formed  a  numerous  community  of  humble 
imitators  of  his  virtues.  Restoring  in  its  strictness  the  neglected 
Rule  of  Benedict,  his  example  and  his  teaching  wrought  conviction, 
and  the  order  of  monks  which  he  founded  and  carried  with  him  to 
the  peaceful  shades  of  Yallombrosa  became  renowned  for  its  sanctity 
and  purity.  Thus  withdrawn  by  the  will  of  heaven  from  the  selfish 
egotism  of  a  hermit’s  existence,  he  labored  earnestly  to  reform  the 
laxity  of  priestly  life  in  general,  and  his  success  was  most  encourag¬ 
ing.  Moved  by  his  admonitions,  self-indulgent  clerks  abandoned 
wives  and  mistresses,  devoted  themselves  to  the  performance  of  their 
sacred  functions,  or  sought  in  monastic  seclusion  to  make  atonement 
for  their  past  excesses.1 

Though  it  may  well  be  supposed  that  Gualberto  was  not  unas¬ 
sisted  in  his  efforts,  yet  all  such  individual  exertions,  dependent  upon 
persuasion  alone,  could  be  but  limited  in  their  influence  and  tem¬ 
porary  in  their  results.  Reform,  to  be  universal  and  permanent, 
required  to  be  authoritative  in  its  character  and  to  proceed  from 
above  downward.  The  papacy  itself  must  cease  to  be  a  scandal  to 
Christendom,  and  must  be  prepared  to  wield  the  awful  force  of 
its  authority,  seconded  by  the  moral  weight  of  its  example,  before 
disorders  so  firmly  rooted  could  be  attacked  with  any  hope  of  success. 
In  1044,  Benedict  IX.  was  driven  out  of  Rome  by  a  faction  of 
rebels  or  patriots,  who  elected  Silvester  III.  as  pontiff  in  his  place. 


1  Atton.  Vit.  S.  Joliannis  Gualbert.  c.  31. 


184 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


A  sudden  revolution  sent  Silvester  into  exile,  and  brought  Benedict 
back,  who,  to  complete  the  confusion,  sold  the  papal  dignity  to  a  new 
aspirant,  known  as  Gregory  VI.  The  transaction  was  not  one  wdiich 
could  decently  be  recognized  by  the  church,  and  Benedict  was  held 
incapable  of  thus  transferring  the  allegiance  of  Christendom  or  of 
depriving  himself  of  his  position.  There  were  thus  three  popes, 
wrhose  conflicting  claims  to  reverence  threw  all  Europe  into  the  doubt 
and  danger  of  schism,  nor  could  the  knotty  question  be  solved  by  the 
powder  of  distracted  Italy.  A  more  potent  judge  was  required,  and 
the  decision  was  referred,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  the  sagacious  and 
energetic  Emperor,  Henry  the  Black,  whose  success  in  repressing  the 
turbulence  of  the  empire,  and  whose  sincere  reverence  for  the  church 
gave  reasonable  promise  of  a  happy  solution  of  the  tangled  problem.1 
His  proceeding  was  summary.  The  three  competitors  were  uncere¬ 
moniously  dismissed,  and  Henry  filled  the  vacancy  thus  created  by 
the  appointment  of  Suidger,  Bishop  of  Bamberg,  wdio  assumed  the 
name  of  Clement  II. 

Henry  III.  was  moved  by  a  profound  conviction  that  a  thorough 
and  searching  reform  was  vitally  necessary  to  the  church.  The  con¬ 
scientious  severity  of  his  character  led  him  to  have  little  toleration 
for  the  abuses  and  disorders  which  were  everywhere  so  painfully 
apparent.  How  far  his  views  were  in  advance  of  those  generally 
entertained,  even  by  ecclesiastical  dignitaries,  was  clearly  manifested 
as  early  as  1042,  when  Gebhardt,  Bishop  of  Ratisbon,  urged  the 
claims  of  his  favorite  arch-priest  Cuno  for  the  vacant  see  of  Eichstedt. 
Henry  refused  on  the  ground  that  Cuno  was  the  son  of  a  priest,  and 
therefore  by  the  established  canons  ineligible  to  the  position.  The 
reason,  though  unanswerable,  was  so  novel  that  Gebhardt  refused  to 
accept  it  as  the  true  one,  and  Henry,  to  pacify  him,  promised  to 
nominate  any  other  one  of  the  Ratisbon  clergy  whom  Gebhardt 
might  select.  The  choice  fell  upon  a  young  and  unknown  man,  also 
named  Gebhardt,  whose  abilities,  brought  into  notice  thus  accidentally, 
rendered  him  afterwards  more  conspicuous  as  Pope  Victor  II.2 


1  The  popular  feelings  which  greeted 
his  interposition  are  well  conveyed  in 
the  jingling  verse  addressed  to  him  by 
a  holy  hermit — 

Una  Sunamitis  nupsit  tribus  maritis; 

Rex  Henrice,  Omnipotentis  vice, 

Solve  connubium,  triforme,  dubium. 

(Annalista  Saxo,  ann.  1046.) 

The  invitation  to  interfere,  however? 


was  not  needed.  Henry's  prerogative  as 
the  representative  of  Charlemagne  and 
Otho  the  Great  was  sufficient  warrant, 
and  his  religious  ardor  an  ample  mo¬ 
tive,  without  any  special  reference  to 
his  tribunal. 

2  Anon,  de  Episcop.  Eichstett.  c.  34 
(Patrolog.  T.  146,  pp.  1021-2). 


HIS  EARLY  CAREER. 


185 


Henry  did  not  neglect  the  opportunity  now  afforded  him  of  carry¬ 
ing  into  effect  his  reformatory  views,  and  in  his  selection  of  a  pontiff 
he  was  apparently  influenced  by  the  conviction  that  the  Italian  clergy 
were  too  hopelessly  corrupt  for  him  to  expect  from  them  assistance 
in  his  plans.  Clement  exchanged  with  him  promises  of  mutual  sup¬ 
port  in  the  arduous  undertaking.  We  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
most  crying  evil;  the  one  first  vigorously  attacked,  and  the  one 
which  was  productive  of  the  greatest  real  detriment  to  the  church — 
simony.  That  was  everywhere  open  and  avowed.  From  the  bless¬ 
ing  of  the  priest  to  the  nomination  for  a  primacy,  every  ecclesiastical 
act  was  the  subject  of  bargain  and  sale,  reduced  in  many  places  to  a 
regular  scale  of  prices.1  To  remove  this  scandal,  Clement  set 
vigorously  to  work,  and  soon  found  an  united  opposition  which 
promised  little  for  the  success  of  the  undertaking.  He  was  doubtless 
sincere,  but  he  was  clearly  alone  in  his  struggle  with  the  fierce 
Italian  prelates,  who  were  resolved  not  to  abandon  the  emoluments 
and  indulgences  to  which  they  had  grown  accustomed,  and  the  result 
of  his  efforts  did  not  fulfil  the  expectations  of  the  more  sanguine 
aspirants  for  the  purification  of  the  church.  Even  his  patron  the 
emperor  appears  to  have  doubted  his  earnestness  in  the  cause,  for  we 
find  Henry  not  only  addressing  him  a  letter  urging  him  to  fresh  ex¬ 
ertion,  but  intrusting  it  to  Peter  Hamiani,  with  a  command  to  present 
it  in  person,  and  to  use  all  his  powers  of  exhortation  to  stimulate  the 
flagging  zeal  of  the  pope.  Hamiani  refused  to  leave  his  hermitage 
even  at  the  imperial  mandate,  but  he  enclosed  the  missive  in  one  of 
his  own,  deploring  the  unhealed  wounds  of  the  church,  recapitulating 
the  shortcomings  of  Clement,  and  goading  him  to  fresh  efforts,  in  a 
style  which  savored  little  of  the  reverence  due  to  the  Vicegerent  of 
God.2  The  pontifical  crown  was  evidently  not  a  wreath  of  roses. 
Clement  sank  under  its  weight,  and  died  October  9th,  1047,  in  less 
than  ten  months  after  he  had  accepted  the  perilous  dignity. 

St.  Peter  Hamiani,  who  thus  introduces  himself  to  our  notice,  was 
one  of  the  remarkable  men  of  the  epoch.  Born  about  the  year  988  at 
Ravenna,  of  a  noble  but  decayed  family,  and  the  last  of  a  numerous 


1  It  would  be  a  work  of  supereroga¬ 
tion  to  quote  the  innumerable  evidences 
of  this  which  crowd  the  pages  of  con¬ 
temporary  writers.  The  generalizing 
remark  of  G-laber  will  suffice — “  Omnes 
quippe  gradus  ecclesiastici  a  maximo 


pontifice  usque  ad  hostianum  opprimun- 
tur  per  suae  damnationis  precium,  ac 
juxta  vocem  Dominicam  in  cunctis 
grassatur  spiritale  latrocinium.” — Glab. 
Rodolph.  Hist.  Lib.  V.  c.  5. 

2  Damiani  Lib.  vm.  Epist.  3. 


186 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


progeny,  he  owed  his  life  to  a  woman  of  the  very  class  to  the  extirpa¬ 
tion  of  which  he  devoted  all  the  energies  of  his  prime.  His  mother, 
worn  out  in  the  struggle  writh  poverty,  regarded  his  birth  with  aver¬ 
sion,  refused  to  suckle  the  infant  saint,  and  neglected  him  until  his 
forlorn  and  emaciated  condition  awoke  the  compassion  of  a  female 
retainer,  the  wife  of  a  priest,  who  remonstrated  with  the  unfeeling 
parent  until  she  succeeded  in  arousing  the  sense  of  duty  and  restored 
to  existence  the  little  sufferer,  who  was  destined  to  bring  unnumbered 
woes  to  all  who  were  of  her  condition.1  His  early  years  are  said  to 
have  been  passed  as  a  swineherd,  till  the  opportunity  for  instruction 
offered  itself,  which  he  eagerly  embraced.  Retiring  at  length  from 
the  world,  he  joined  the  disciples  of  St.  Romuald,  who  practised  the 
strictest  monastic  life,  either  as  monks  or  hermits,  at  Avellana,  near 
Agubio.  Immuring  himself  there  in  the  desert,  his  austerities  soon 
gained  for  him  the  reputation  of  preeminent  sanctity,  and  led  to  his 
election  as  prior  of  the  brotherhood.  Gifted  by  nature  with  an  intel¬ 
lect  of  unusual  strength,  informed  with  all  the  learning  of  the  day, 
his  stern  asceticism,  his  dauntless  spirit,  and  the  uncompromising 
force  of  his  zeal  brought  him  into  notice  and  marked  him  as  a  fitting 
instrument  in  the  cause  of  reform.  Occasionally,  at  the  call  of  his 
superiors,  he  left  his  beloved  retreat  to  do  battle  with  the  hosts  of 
evil,  returning  with  renewed  zest  to  the  charms  of  solitude,  until,  in 
1057,  Stephen  IX.  forced  him  to  accept  the  cardinalate  and  bishopric 
of  Ostia — the  highest  dignity  in  the  Roman  court.  The  duties  of 
his  episcopate,  however,  conflicted  with  his  monastic  fervor,  and  after 
a  few  years  he  rendered  up  the  pastoral  ring  and  staff  and  again 
returned  to  Avellana,  where  he  died  in  1072,  full  of  years  and 
honors.  His  position  and  authority  can  best  be  estimated  from 
the  terms  employed  by  Alexander  II.,  wTho,  when  sending  him  on 
an  important  mission  to  France,  described  him  as  next  in  influence 
to  himself  in  the  Roman  church,  and  the  chief  support  of  the  Holy 
See.2 

With  a  nature  ardent  and  combative,  worked  up  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  ascetic  intolerance  by  the  introspective  musings  of  his  cell, 
it  may  readily  be  conceived  that  the  corruptions  of  the  church  filled 
him  with  wrarm  indignation  and  fierce  desire  to  restore  it  to  its  pris¬ 
tine  purity.  To  this  holy  cause  he  devoted  the  last  half  of  his  life, 


1  Johannis  Yit.  B.  P.  Damiani  c.  1. 
5  Alex.  II.  Epist.  15. 


LEO  IX.  AND  DAMIANI. 


187 


and  was  always  ready,  with  tongue  and  pen,  at  the  sacrifice  of  his 
dearly  prized  solitude,  to  further  the  great  movement  on  which  he 
felt  that  the  future  of  Christianity  depended.  The  brief  hopes  ex¬ 
cited  by  the  promises  of  Clement  and  Henry  were  speedily  quenched 
by  the  untimely  death  of  the  German  pontiff,  and  the  most  sanguine 
might  well  despair  at  seeing  the  odious  Benedict  IX.  reinstated  as 
pope.  But  the  emperor  was  in  earnest,  and  listened  willingly  to  the 
cry  of  those  who  besought  him  not  to  leave  his  good  work  unfinished. 
Nine  brief  months  saw  Benedict  again  a  wanderer,  and  another 
German  prelate  installed  in  his  place.  Poppo  of  Brixen,  however, 
enjoyed  his  new  dignity,  as  Damasus  II.,  but  twenty-one  days,  when 
he  fell  a  martyr  to  the  cause,  perishing  miserably,  either  through 
the  insalubrious  heats  of  a  Roman  summer,  or  the  hidden  vindictive¬ 
ness  of  Italian  party  rage.  It  required  some  courage  to  accept  the 
honorable  but  fatal  post,  and  six  months  elapsed  ere  a  worthy  candi¬ 
date  could  be  found.  Henry’s  choice  this  time  fell  upon  Bruno  of 
Toul,  a  prelate  to  wdiom  admiring  biographers  ascribe  every  virtue 
and  every  qualification.  As  Leo  IX.  he  ascended  the  pontifical 
throne  in  February,  1049,  and  he  soon  gave  ample  evidence  of  the 
sincerity  with  which  he  intended  to  carry  out  the  views  of  the  puri¬ 
tans  whom  he  represented. 

It  was  significant  that  he  took  with  him  to  Rome  the  monk  Hilde¬ 
brand,  lately  released  from  the  service  of  his  master  Gregory  VI., 
who  had  died  in  his  German  exile,  restored  by  a  miracle  at  his  death 
to  the  honors  of  which  he  had  been  adjudged  unworthy  while  living.1 
Still  more  significant  was  the  fact  that  Leo  entered  Rome,  not  as 
pope,  but  as  a  barefooted  pilgrim,  and  that  he  required  the  empty 
formality  of  an  election  within  the  city,  as  though  the  nomination  of 
the  emperor  had  given  him  no  claim  to  his  high  office.  Whether  this 
was  the  result  of  a  voice  from  heaven,  as  related  by  the  papal  histo¬ 
rians,2  or  whether  it  was  done  at  the  suggestion  of  the  high-church¬ 
man  Hildebrand,  it  showed  that  the  new  pontiff  magnified  his  office, 
and  felt  that  the  line  of  distinction  between  the  clerk  and  the  layman 
was  to  be  sharply  drawn  and  vigorously  defended. 


1  Learning,  on  his  death-bed,  that  he 
was  not  to  he  buried  as  a  pope,  he  re¬ 
quested  the  prelates  around  him  to  place 
his  coffin  at  the  church-door  securely 
fastened,  and  if  the  portals  opened 
without  human  hands,  it  would  be  a 


sign  that  he  should  receive  papal  honors. 
It  was  done,  when  a  gust  of  wind  burst 
open  the  door  and  lifted  the  coffin 
from  the  bier  (Martin.  Fuldens.  Chron. 
ann.  1046). 

2  Martin.  Fuldens.  ann.  1050. 


188 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


Damiani  lost  no  time  in  stimulating  the  stranger  to  the  duties 
expected  of  him  by  the  party  of  reform.  From  the  retreat  of  Avel- 
lana  he  addressed  to  Leo  an  essay,  which  is  the  saddest  of  all  the 
sad  monuments  bequeathed  to  us  by  that  age  of  desolation.  With 
cynical  boldness  he  develops  the  frightful  excesses  epidemically  preva¬ 
lent  among  the  cloistered  crowds  of  men,  attributable  to  the  unnatural 
restraints  imposed  upon  the  passions  of  those  unfitted  by  nature  or 
by  training  to  control  themselves  ;  and  his  laborious  efforts  to  demon¬ 
strate  the  propriety  of  punishing  the  guilty  by  degradation  show  how 
hideous  was  the  laxity  of  morals  which  was  disposed  to  regard  such 
crimes  with  indulgence.1  Like  the  nameless  horrors  of  the  Peniten- 
tials,  it  is  the  most  convincing  commentary  on  the  system  which 
sought  to  enforce  an  impossible  exaltation  of  purity  on  the  ministers 
of  a  religion  whose  outward  formalism  had  absorbed  its  internal  life.2 

Leo  IX.  was  not  long  in  manifesting  his  intentions,  and  his  first 
point  of  attack  was  chosen  with  some  skill,  the  ecclesiastical  rank  of 
the  victim  and  his  want  of  power  rendering  him  at  once  a  striking 
example  and  an  easy  sacrifice.  Dabralis,  Archbishop  of  Salona  (or 
Spalatro)  in  Dalmatia,  was  married  and  lived  openly  with  his  wife. 
Leo  sent  a  legate  to  investigate  and  punish.  Called  before  a  synod, 
Dabralis  could  not  or  deigned  not  to  deny  his  guilt,  but  boldly  justi¬ 
fied  it,  as  the  woman  was  his  lawful  wife,  and  he  instanced  the  cus¬ 
toms  of  the  Greek  church  in  his  defence.  This  only  aggravated  his 
guilt,  and  he  was  promptly  degraded  forever.3 * * * 


1  Damiani  Opusc.  VII.  (Liber  Go- 
morrhianus). — Some  ten  or  twelve  years 
later,  Alexander  II.  obtained  the  manu¬ 
script  from  Damiani,  under  pretence  of 
having  it  copied,  but  prudently  locked 
it  up  and  refused  to  return  it.  The 
saintly  author  complained  bitterly7"  of 
the  deception  thus  practised  upon  him, 
which  he  unceremoniously  characterized 
as  a  fraud  (Damiani  Lib.  II.  Epist.  6). 

2  The  world  can  never  know  the  long 

and  silent  suffering  endured  in  the  ter¬ 

rible  self-combat  of  ardent  natures  in 

the  solitude  of  the  cloister.  If  many 
succumb,  the  indignation  which  Da¬ 

miani  and  his  class  so  freely  bestow  on 

the  victims  should  be  transferred  rather 
to  the  system  which  produces  them. 
A  monk  of  the  period  has  left  us  a  vivid 
and  curious  picture  of  his  own  tortures 
in  the  endless  struggle  \yith  the  tempter ; 
and  the  mental  torments  to  which  his 
fellow-unfortunates  were  exposed  are 


aptly  condensed  in  the  simple  tale  of 
the  Abbess  Sarah,  who  for  thirteen  long 
years  maintained  her  ground  without 
shrinking  from  the  ceaseless  assaults  of 
the  enemy  by  continually  invoking  the 
aid  of  God — “Da  mihi  fortitudinem 
Deus!”  (Othlon.  de  Tentat.  suis  P.  i.). 

The  hagiology  of  the  church  is  full 
of  legends,  more  or  less  veritable,  of 
the  sufferings  of  these  martyrs  and  of 
their  triumphs  over  the  flesh,  from  the 
time  of  St.  Ammonius,  who,  when  less 
decisive  measures  failed,  bored  his  flesh 
in  many  places  with  red-hot  iron,  and 
thus  vanquished  passion  by  suffering. 
A  collection  of  these  stories,  more 
curious  than  decent,  may  be  found 
admiringly  detailed  by  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis  in  his  Gemma  Ecclesiastica, 
Dist.  ii. 

3  Batthyani  Leg.  Eccles.  Hung.  I. 
401. 


REFORMATION  COMMENCED. 


189 


Leaving,  for  a  time,  the  Italian  church  for  subsequent  efforts  at 
reformation,  Leo  undertook  a  progress  throughout  Northern  Europe, 
for  the  purpose  of  restoring  the  neglected  discipline  of  those  regions. 
Before  the  year  of  his  installation  had  expired,  in  November,  1049, 
we  find  him  presiding  with  the  emperor  at  a  council  in  Mainz,  where 
the  simony  and  marriage  of  the  clergy  were  condemned  under  severe 
penalties.1  That  the  influence  thus  brought  to  bear  had  some  effect, 
at  least  in  externals,  is  shown  by  the  courtly  Albert  of  Hamburg, 
who,  on  returning  from  the  council  to  his  see,  revived  a  forgotten 
regulation  of  his  predecessors,  by  virtue  of  which  the  women  of 
ecclesiastics  were  ordered  to  live  outside  of  the  towns,  in  order  to 
avoid  public  scandal.2  A  few  weeks  before,  in  France,  Leo  had  pre¬ 
sided  over  a  national  council  at  Bheims,  where  his  vigorous  action 
against  simony  caused  numerous  vacancies  in  the  hierarchy.  The 
records  and  canons  of  this  council  contain  no  allusions  to  the  subject 
of  marriage  or  concubinage,  but  it  is  altogether  improbable  that  they 
escaped  attention,  for  they  were  indulged  in  without  concealment  by 
all  classes  of  ecclesiastics,  and  some  subsequent  writers  assert  that 
they  were  rigorously  prohibited  by  the  council,  but  that  the  injunc¬ 
tions  promulgated  were  unavailing.3 

Beturning  to  the  South,  the  Easter  of  1051  beheld  a  council 
assembled  at  Rome  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  discipline.  Appar¬ 
ently,  the  Italian  prelates  were  disposed  to  exercise  considerable 
caution  in  furthering  the  wishes  of  their  chief,  for  they  abstained 
from  visiting  their  indignation  on  the  guilty  priests,  and  directed 
their  penalties  against  the  unfortunate  females.  In  the  city  itself 
these  were  declared  to  be  enslaved,  and  wTere  bestowed  on  the  cathe¬ 
dral  church  of  the  Lateran,  while  all  bishops  throughout  Christen¬ 
dom  were  desired  to  apply  the  rule  to  their  own  dioceses,  and  to  seize 


1  Adami  Bremens.  Gest.  Pontif. 
Hammaburg.  Lib.  in.  c.  29. — Annalista 
Saxo,  ann.  1048. 

2  Adam.  Bremens.  loc.  cit. 

3  Tunc  quippe  in  Neustria,  post  ad- 
ventum  Normannorum,  in  tantum  dis- 
soluta  erat  castitas  clericorum,  ut  non 
solum  presbyteri  sed  etiam  prsesules 
libere  uterentur  toris  concubinarum,  et 
palam  superbirent  multiplici  propagine 
filiorum  ac  filiarum.  .  .  Tandem  .  .  . 
Leo  Papa  ...  in  Gallias  A.  D.  1049 
venit.  .  .  Tunc  ibidem  (Remis)  gener¬ 
ate  concilium  tenuit,  et  inter  reliqua 


ecclesise  commoda  quse  instituit,  pres- 
byteris  arma  ferre  et  conjuges  habere 
prohibuit.  Arma  quidem  ferre  presby¬ 
teri  jam  gratanter  desiere,  sed  a  pellicibus 
adhuc  nolunt  abstinere,  nec  pudicitise 
inhcerere. — Orderic.  Vital.  P.  n.  Lib. 
v.  c.  15. — This  portion  of  the  work  of 
Ordericus  was  written  about  the  year 
1125. 

Ibi  vero  simoniaci,  tarn  populares 
quam  clerici,  presbyterique  uxorati, 
persuasione  sancti  Hugonis,  a  catho- 
licorum  communione  et  ab  ecclesiis 
eliminati  sunt. — Alberic.  Trium  Fon- 
tium  Chron.  ann.  1049. 


190 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


the  offending  women  for  the  benefit  of  their  churches.1  The  atrocity 
of  this  legislation  against  the  wives  of  priests  is  all  the  more  note¬ 
worthy  when  contrasted  with  the  tenderness  shown  to  worse  crimes 
committed  by  men  whose  high  position  only  rendered  their  guilt  the 
more  heinous.  At  this  council,  Gregory,  Bishop  of  Vercelli,  was 
convicted  of  what,  by  the  rules  of  the  church,  was  considered  as 
incest — an  amour  wTith  a  widow  betrothed  to  his  uncle.  For  this 
aggravated  offence  he  was  merely  excommunicated,  and  when,  soon 
after,  he  presented  himself  in  Rome,  he  was  restored  to  communion 
on  his  simple  promise  to  perform  adequate  penance.2 

The  reformatory  zeal  of  Leo  and  of  the  monastic  followers  of 
Damiani  wTas  thus  evidently  not  seconded  by  the  Italian  church.  A 
still  more  striking  proof  of  this  was  afforded  by  the  attempt  to  hold 
a  council  at  Mantua  early  in  1058.  The  prelates  who  dreaded  the 
result  conspired  to  break  it  up.  A  riot  was  provoked  between  their 
retainers  and  the  papal  domestics ;  the  latter,  taken  unawares  and 
speedily  overpowered,  fled  to  the  council-chamber  for  safety,  and  Leo, 
rushing  to  the  door  to  protect  them,  was  in  imminent  danger  from 
the  arrows  and  stones  which  hurtled  thickly  around  him.3  The 
reckless  plot  succeeded,  and  the  council  dispersed  in  undignified 
haste.  Whether  Leo  wras  disgusted  with  his  want  of  success  and 
convinced  of  the  impracticability  of  the  undertaking,  or  whether  his 
attention  was  thenceforth  absorbed  by  his  unlucky  military  operations 
against  the  rapidly  augmenting  Norman  power  in  Southern  Italy,  it  is 
not  easy  now  to  ascertain :  suffice  it  to  say  that  no  further  indications 
remain  of  any  endeavor  to  carry  out  the  reforms  so  eagerly  commenced 
in  the  first  ardor  of  his  pontificate.  The  consistent  Damiani  opposed 
the  warlike  aspirations  of  the  pontiff,  but  Leo  persisted  in  leading 
his  armies  himself.  A  lost  battle  threw  Leo  into  the  power  of  the 
hated  Normans,  when,  after  nine  months,  he  returned  to  Rome  to 
die,  in  April,  1054,  and  to  be  reverenced  as  a  saint  after  death  by 
those  who  had  withstood  him  during  life  in  every  possible  manner.4 

It  is  not  easy  to  repress  a  smile  on  seeing  Leo,  who  had  been  so 


1  Damiani  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  ii.  c. 
7. — It  was  probably  some  vague  recol¬ 
lection  of  this  provision,  combined  with 
the  regulations  adopted  at  Pavia  in 
1022  (p.  178)  that  led  Dr.  Martin,  one 
of  the  commissioners  who  presided  at 
the  trial  of  Archbishop  Cranmer,  to  de¬ 
clare  to  that  unhappy  culprit  that  “  his 
children  were  bondmen  to  the  see  of 


Canterbury.”  —  Strype,  Memorials  of 
Cranmer,  Book  III.  chap.  27. 

2  Herman.  Contract.  Chron.  ann. 
1051. 

3  Muratori  Annali,  ann.  1053. 

4  S.  Leonis  PP.  IX.  Mirac.  (Mig- 
ne’s  Patrolog.  CXLIII.  525  sqq.) 


RESISTANCE  OF  THE  CLERGY. 


191 


utterly  unable  to  enforce  the  canons  of  the  Latin  church  at  home, 
seriously  undertaking  to  procure  their  adoption  in  Constantinople. 
From  his  prison,  in  January,  1054,  he  sent  Cardinal  Humbert  of 
Silva  Candida  on  a  mission  to  convert  the  Greek  church.  There  is 
extant  a  controversy  between  the  legate  and  Nicetas  Pectoratus,  a 
learned  Greek  abbot,  on  the  various  points  in  dispute.  I  cannot 
profess  to  decide  which  of  the  antagonists  had  the  advantage  on  the 
recondite  questions  of  the  use  of  unleavened  bread,  the  Sabbath  fasts, 
the  calculation  of  Easter,  &c.,  but  the  contrast  between  the  urbanity 
of  the  Greek  and  the  coarse  vituperation  of  the  Latin  is  strikingly 
suggestive  as  a  tacit  confession  of  defeat  on  the  part  of  the  latter.  In 
view  of  the  frightful  immorality  of  the  Italian  clergy,  there  is  some¬ 
thing  peculiarly  ludicrous  in  the  mingled  anger,  contempt,  and 
abhorrence  with  which  Humbert  alludes  to  the  marriage  of  the  Greek 
clergy,  which,  as  he  declares,  renders  their  church  the  synagogue  of 
Satan  and  the  brothel  of  Balaam  and  Jezebel,  with  other  equally 
courteous  and  convincing  arguments.  Humbert  attributes  priestly 
marriage  altogether  to  the  heresy  of  the  Nicolites,  and  lays  down  the 
law  on  the  subject  as  inexorably  as  though  it  were  at  the  time 
observed  in  his  own  church.1 

After  an  interval  of  about  a  year,  the  line  of  German  pontiffs  was 
continued  in  the  person  of  Gebhardt,  Bishop  of  Eichstedt  (Victor 
II.),  whose  appointment  by  the  emperor  was  owing  in  no  small  degree 
to  the  influence  of  Hildebrand — an  influence  which  was  daily  making 
itself  more  felt.  Installed  in  the  pontifical  seat  by  Godfrey,  Duke  of 
Tuscany,  his  efforts  to  continue  the  reformation  commenced  by  his 
predecessors  aroused  a  stubborn  resistance.  There  may  be  no  founda¬ 
tion  for  the  legend  of  his  being  saved  by  a  miracle  from  a  sacramental 
cup  poisoned  by  a  vengeful  subdeacon,  nor  for  the  rumors  that  his 
early  death  was  hastened  by  the  recalcitrant  clergy  who  sought  to 
escape  the  severity  of  his  discipline.  There  is  some  probability  in 
the  stories,  however,  for,  during  his  short  pontificate,  interrupted  by 
a  lengthened  stay  in  Germany  and  the  perpetual  vicissitudes  of  the 
Neapolitan  troubles,  he  yet  found  time  to  hold  a  synod  at  Florence, 
where  he  degraded  numerous  prelates  for  simony  and  licentiousness ; 
but,  whether  true  or  false,  the  existence  of  the  reports  attests  at  once 
the  sincerity  of  his  zeal  and  the  difficulties  of  the  task.2 

1  Humberti  Card,  contra  Nicetam  xxv.  xxvi. 

2  Lambert.  Schaffnab.  ann.  1054. — Martin.  Polon.  ann.  1057. 


192 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


His  death  in  July,  105T,  was  followed  after  but  a  few  days’  inter¬ 
val  by  the  election  of  Frederic,  Duke  of  Lorraine — the  empire  having 
passed  in  1056  from  the  able  hands  of  Henry  III.  to  the  feeble 
regency  of  his  empress,  Agnes,  as  guardian  of  the  unfortunate  infant 
Henry  IV. — thus  releasing  the  Roman  clergy  from  the  degrading 
dictation  of  a  Teutonic  potentate.  That  Frederic  should  have  aban¬ 
doned  the  temptations  and  ambitions  of  his  lofty  station  to  embrace 
the  austerities  of  monastic  life  in  the  abbey  of  Monte  Casino,  is  a 
sufficient  voucher  that  he  would  not  draw  back  from  the  work  thus 
far  hopelessly  undertaken  by  his  predecessors.  Notwithstanding  the 
severity  of  the  canons  promulgated  during  the  previous  decade,  and 
the  incessant  attempts  to  enforce  them,  Rome  was  still  full  of  married 
priests,  and  the  battle  had  to  be  recommenced,  as  though  nothing  had 
yet  been  done.  Immediately  on  his  installation,  as  Stephen  IX.,  he 
addressed  himself  unshrinkingly  to  the  task.  For  four  months, 
during  the  most  unhealthy  season,  he  remained  in  Rome,  calling 
synod  after  synod,  and  laboring  with  both  clergy  and  people  to  put 
an  end  to  such  unholy  unions,1  and  he  summarily  expelled  from  the 
church  all  who  had  been  guilty  of  incontinence  since  the  prohibitions 
issued  in  the  time  of  Leo.2  One  case  is  related  of  a  contumacious 
priest  whose  sudden  death  gave  him  the  opportunity  of  striking  terror 
into  the  hearts  of  the  reckless,  for  the  mutilated  funeral  rites  which 
deprived  the  hardened  sinner  of  the  consolation  of  a  Christian  burial 
it  was  hoped  would  prove  an  effectual  warning  to  his  fellows.3  Feel¬ 
ing  the  necessity  of  support  in  these  thankless  labors,  he  forced 
Damiani  to  leave  the  retirement  of  the  cloistered  shades  of  Avellana, 
and  to  bear,  as  Bishop  of  Ostia,  his  share  of  the  burden  in  the  contest 
which  he  had  done  so  much  to  provoke — but  it  was  all  in  vain. 

In  little  more  than  half  a  year  Stephen  found  refuge  from  strife 
and  turmoil  in  the  tomb.  The  election  of  his  successor,  Gerard, 
Bishop  of  Florence,  was  the  formal  proclamation  that  the  church 
was  no  longer  subjected  to  the  control  of  the  secular  authority. 
January  18th,  1058,  saw  the  power  of  the  emperor  defied,  and  the 
gauntlet  thrown  for  the  quarrel  which  for  three  centuries  was  to 
plunge  Central  and  Southern  Europe  in  turmoil  and  bloodshed. 
Henry  III.  had  labored  conscientiously  to  rescue  the  papacy  from 
the  disgrace  into  which  it  had  fallen.  By  removing  it  from  the  petty 


1  Leo.  Marsic.  Cliron.  Casinens.  Lib.  n.  c.  97. 

2  Damiani  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  ii.  c.  G. 


3  Ibid. 


DAMIANI  AND  HILDEBRAND. 


193 


sphere  of  the  counts  of  Tusculum  and  the  barons  of  the  Campagna, 
and  by  providing  for  it  a  series  of  highminded  and  energetic  pontiffs, 
he  had  restored  its  forfeited  position,  and  indeed  had  conferred  upon 
it  an  amount  of  influence  which  it  had  never  before  possessed.  His 
thorough  disinterestedness  and  his  labors  for  its  improvement  had 
disarmed  all  resistance  to  the  exercise  of  his  power,  but  when  that 
power  passed  into  the  hands  of  an  infant  but  five  years  old,  it  was 
natural  that  the  church  should  seek  to  emancipate  itself  from  sub¬ 
jection  ;  and  if  almost  the  first  use  made  of  its  new-found  prerogatives 
was  to  crush  the  hand  that  had  enabled  it  to  obtain  them,  we  must 
not  tax  with  ingratitude  those  who  were  undoubtedly  penetrated  with 
the  conviction  that  they  were  only  vindicating  the  imprescriptible 
rights  of  the  church,  and  that  to  them  was  confided  the  future  of 
religion  and  civilization. 

In  the  revolution  which  thus  may  date  its  successful  commence¬ 
ment  at  this  period  the  two  foremost  figures  are  Damiani  and 
Hildebrand.  Damiani  the  monk,  with  no  further  object  than  the 
abolition  of  simony  and  the  enforcement  of  the  austerities  which  he 
deemed  indispensable  to  the  salvation  of  the  individual  and  to  the 
purity  of  the  church,  looked  not  beyond  the  narrow  circle  of  his 
daily  life,  and  sought  merely  to  level  mankind  by  the  measure  of  his 
own  stature.  Hildebrand,  the  far-seeing  statesman,  could  make  use 
of  Damiani  and  his  tribe,  perhaps  equally  fervent  in  his  belief  that 
the  asceticism  of  his  fellow  laborer  was  an  acceptable  offering  to  God, 
but  yet  with  ulterior  views  of  transcendently  greater  importance. 
In  his  grand  scheme  of  a  theocratic  empire,  it  became  an  absolute 
prerequisite  that  the  church  should  hold  undivided  sway  over  its 
members;  that  no  human  affection  should  render  their  allegiance 
doubtful,  but  that  their  every  thought  and  action  should  be  devoted 
to  the  common  aggrandizement;  that  they  should  be  separated  from 
the  people  by  an  impassable  barrier,  and  should  wield  an  influence 
which  could  only  be  obtained  by  those  who  were  recognized  as 
superior  to  the  weaknesses  of  common  humanity;  that  the  immense 
landed  possessions  of  the  church  should  remain  untouched  and  con¬ 
stantly  increasing  as  the  common  property  of  all,  and  not  be  sub¬ 
jected  to  the  incessant  dilapidations  inseparable  from  uxorious  or 
paternal  affections  at  a  time  when  the  restraints  of  law  and  of  public 
opinion  could  not  be  brought  to  bear  with  effect.  In  short,  if  the 
church  was  to  assume  and  maintain  the  position  to  which  it  was 

13 


194 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


entitled  by  the  traditions  of  the  canon  law  and  of  the  False  Decretals, 
it  must  be  a  compact  and  mutually  supporting  body,  earning  by  its 
self-inflicted  austerities  the  reverence  to  which  it  laid  claim,  and  not 
be  diverted  from  its  splendid  goal  by  worldly  allurements  or  carnal 
indulgences  and  preoccupations.  Such  was  the  vision  to  the  realiza¬ 
tion  of  which  Hildebrand  devoted  his  commanding  talents  and 
matchless  force  of  will.  The  temporal  success  was  at  length  all  that 
he  could  have  anticipated.  If  the  spiritual  results  were  craft, 
subtlety,  arrogance,  cruelty,  and  sensuality,  hidden  or  cynical,  it 
merely  proves  that  his  confidence  in  the  strength  of  human  nature 
to  endure  the  intoxicating  effects  of  irresponsible  power  was  mis¬ 
placed.  Meanwhile  he  labored  with  Damiani  at  the  preliminary 
measures  of  his  enterprise,  and  together  they  bent  their  energies  to 
procure  the  enforcement  of  the  neglected  rules  of  discipline. 

The  new  pope,  Nicholas  II.  by  name,  entered  unreservedly  into 
their  views.  Apparently  taught  by  experience  the  fruitlessness  of 
additional  legislation  when  the  existing  canons  were  amply  sufficient, 
but  their  execution  impossible  through  the  negligence  or  collusion  of 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  he  assembled,  in  1059,  a  council  of  a 
hundred  and  thirteen  bishops,  in  which  he  adopted  the  novel  and 
hazardous  expedient  of  appealing  to  the  laity,  and  of  rendering  them 
at  once  the  judges  and  executioners  of  their  pastors.  A  canon  was 
promulgated  forbidding  all  Christians  to  be  present  at  the  mass  of 
any  priest  known  to  keep  a  concubine  or  female  in  his  house.1  This 
probably  remained,  like  its  predecessors,  a  dead  letter  for  the  present, 
but  we  shall  see  what  confusion  it  excited  when  it  was  revived  and 
put  effectually  in  force  by  Gregory  VII.  some  fifteen  years  later. 
Meanwhile  I  may  observe  that  it  trenched  very  nearly  on  the 
Donatist  heresy  that  the  sacrament  was  polluted  in  polluted  hands, 
and  it  required  the  most  careful  word-splitting  to  prevent  the  faithful 
from  drawing  a  conclusion  so  natural.2 


1  Ut  nullus  missam  audiat  presbyteri 
quem  scit  concubinam  indubitanter 
habere  aut  subintroductam  mulierem. 
— Concil.  Roman,  ann.  1059  c.  3. 

Singularly  enough,  this  clause  is 
omitted  in  the  synodical  epistle  ad¬ 
dressed  to  the  Gallic  clergy,  as  given  by 
Hugh  of  Flavigny,  Chron.  Lib.  II. 
ann.  1059. 

2  How  utterly  this  was  opposed  to 
the  received  dogmas  and  practice  of  the 
church  can  be  seen  from  the  decision  of 


Nicholas  I.  on  the  same  question — 
“  Sciscitantibus  vobis,  si  a  sacerdote, 
qui  sive  comprehensus  est  in  adulterio, 
sive  do  hoc  fama  sola  respersus  est, 
debeatis  communionem  suscipere,  necne, 
respondemus  :  Non  potest  aliquis  quan- 
tumcumque  pollutus  sit,  sacramenta 
divina  polluere,  quae  purgatoria  cuncta- 
rum  remedia  contagionum  existunt. 
.  .  .  Sumite,  igitur,  intrepide  ab  omni 
sacerdote  Christi  mysteria,  quoniam 
omnia  in  fide  purgantur”  (Nicolai  I. 
Epist.  xcvn.  c.  71).  See  also  a  simi- 


NICHOLAS  II. 


195 


In  addition  to  this,  the  council  ordered,  under  pain  of  excommuni¬ 
cation,  that  no  priest  who  openly  took  a  concubine  (or  rather  a  wife), 
or  who  did  not  forthwith  separate  himself  from  such  a  connection 
already  existing,  should  dare  to  perform  any  sacred  function,  or  enjoy 


lar  decision  in  727  by  Gregory  II. 
(Bonifacii  Epist.  cxxvi.). 

The  only  adverse  authority  of  this 
period  that  I  have  met  with  is  the 
Penitential  of  Theodore  of  Canterbury, 
already  referred  to,  prescribing  rebaptism 
for  those  baptized  by  priests  of  known 
unchastity  (Lib.  II.  cap.  ii.  $  12. — 
Haddan  &  Stubbs’s  Councils,  III.  192). 

Damiani  saw  the  danger  to  which  a 
practice  such  as  this  exposed  the  church, 
and  lifted  up  his  voice  to  prevent  the 
evil  results — 

Audite  etiam,  laici, 

Qui  Christo  famulamini; 

Pro  ullo  unquam  crimine, 

Pastores  non  despicite. 

(Carmen  ccxxii.) 

and  when,  about  the  year  1060,  the 
Florentines  refused  the  ministrations  of 
their  bishop,  whom  they  were  deter¬ 
mined  from  other  causes  to  eject,  he 
reproved  them  warmly,  adducing  the 
only  reasonable  view  of  the  question, 

1  ‘  quod  Spiritus  Sanctus  per  improbi 
ministerium  dare  potest  sua  charismata  ” 
(Opusc.  xxx.  c.  2). 

Simoniacal  priests  as  well  as  concu- 
binary  ones  were  included  in  the  ban, 
and  when,  in  1049,  Leo  IX.  commenced 
his  vigorous  persecution  of  simony, 
there  arose  a  belief  that  ordination 
received  at  hands  tainted  with  that  sin 
was  null  and  void.  This  was  promptly 
stigmatized  as  a  heresy,  and  Damiani’s 
untiring  pen  was  employed  in  combat¬ 
ing  it.  He  argued  the  question  very 
thoroughly  and  keenly  when  it  was 
under  debate  by  a  synod,  and  succeeded 
in  procuring  its  condemnation  (Opusc. 
VI.  c.  12). 

The  prohibition,  first  proclaimed  by 
Nicholas  II.  and  finally  enforced  by 
Gregory  VII.,  caused  no  little  trouble 
in  the  church.  Towards  the  close  of 
the  centurv,  Urban  II.  found  himself 
obliged  to  discuss  the  question,  and  in 
an  epistle  to  Lucius,  provost  of  the 
church  of  St.  Juventius  at  Pavia,  he 
admits  that  the  sacraments  administered 
by  guilty  priests  are  uncorrupted,  yet 
he  approves  of  their  rejection  in  order 
to  stimulate  the  clergy  to  virtue,  and 
even  declares  that  those  who  receive 


them,  except  under  instant  and  pressing 
necessity,  are  guilty  of  idolatry  (“nisi 
forte  sola  morte  interveniente,  utpote 
ne  sine  baptismate  vel  communione 
quilibet  humanis  rebus  excedat;  eis, 
inquam,  in  tantum  obsunt,  ut  veri 
idolatrse  sint” — Urbani  II.  Epist.  273) 
— a  decision  the  logic  of  which  is  not 
readily  apprehended.  St.  Anselm  of 
Canterbury  assents  to  the  doctrine,  but 
places  it  in  a  more  reasonable  and  prac¬ 
tical  shape — “non  quo  quis  ea  quae 
tractent  contemnenda,  sed  tractantes 
execrandos  existimet”  (Epist.  yiii.). 
The  consequences  of  such  a  system, 
however,  if  strictly  carried  out,  would 
have  been  most  disastrous  to  the  church, 
and  when  the  zeal  of  Hildebrand  be¬ 
came  forgotten  his  injunctions  were 
overruled.  The  century  was  scarcely 
out  before  Honorius  of  Autun  main¬ 
tained  most  positively  that  Christ  oper¬ 
ates  through  the  hands  of  the  vilest  as 
well  as  of  the  most  holy  ministers,  pro¬ 
vided  only  they  are  orthodox  in  faith 
(Eucharistion  c.  vi. — Pez,  Thesaur. 
II.  i.  355).  About  1150,  however, 
Geroch  of  Reichersperg  declares  that  he 
considered  Gregory’s  commands  as  still 
in  force,  and  that  he  paid  no  more  at¬ 
tention  to  the  masses  of  concubinary 
priests  than  if  they  were  so  many 
Pagans  (Gerhohi  Dial,  de  Differentia 
Cleri — Pez,  Thesaur.  II.  ii.  463).  Yet 
before  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century, 
Lucius  III.  had  returned  to  the  policy 
of  Nicholas  I. — “  Sumite  ergo  ab  omni 
sacerdote  intrepide  Christi  mysteria, 
quia  omnia  in  fide  Christi  purgantur  ” 
(Post  Lateran.  Concil.  P.  l.  c.  38),  the 
positiveness  of  which  was  not  much 
affected  by  the  subtle  distinctions  which 
he  endeavored  to  draw  between  crimes 
notorious  and  tolerated.  Yet  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  on  the  other  hand,  affirmed 
that  it  was  a  mortal  sin  to  assist  at  the 
Mass  celebrated  by  a  priest  who  was 
notoriously  unchaste  (Pontas,  Diet,  de 
Cas  de  Conscience  II.  1445).  The 
church,  however,  gradually  returned  to 
the  old  doctrine  and  practice.  The 
policy  of  Gregory  was  condemned  as 
a  heresy  when  adopted  bv  the  followers 
of  Arnold  of  Brescia  (Bonacursi  Vit. 
Hrereticorum — D’Achery  I.  214)  and 


196 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


any  portion  of  ecclesiastical  revenue.1  Hildebrand,  who  was  all- 
powerful  at  the  papal  court — his  enemies  accused  him  of  keeping 
Nicholas  like  an  ass  in  the  stable,  feeding  him  to  do  his  work — has 


an  austere  priest,  Albero  of  Mercke, 
near  Cologne,  who  taught  it  was 
promptly  silenced  (Anon.  adv.  Alher- 
onis  errores — Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  IX. 
1251).  In  1292  the  council  of  Aschaf- 
fenburg  anathematized  those  who 
“  pnesumptione  dampnabili  ”  taught 
the  heresy  that  priests  in  mortal  sin 
could  not  perform  the  sacred  mysteries, 
and  it  decided  “  licite  ergo  a  quocumque 
sacerdote  ab  ecclesia  tolerato,  divina 
mysteria  audiantur  et  alia  recipiantur 
ecclesiastica  sacramenta  ”  (Concil. 
Schafnaburg.  ann.  1292  can.  i. — 
Hartzheim  IV.  7).  And  when  "Wick- 
liffe  and  Huss  undertook  to  carry  out 
the  dicta  of  Nicholas  II.  and  Gregory 
VII.  to  their  legitimate  conclusions, 
the  policy  was  at  once  recognized  as  a 
heresy  of  the  worst  character  and  most 
destructive  consequence.  Thus  in  1491  a 
Synod  of  Bamberg  condemns  as  heretics 
those  who  refuse  to  receive  the  minis¬ 
trations  of  sinful  priests.  —  Synod. 
Bamberg,  ann.  1491  Tit.  xliv.  (Lude- 
wig.  Script.  Her.  German.  I.  1241-2). 

1  Quicumque  sacerdotum,  diacono- 
rum,  subdiaconorum  .  .  .  concubinam 
palam  duxerit  vel  ductam  non  reliquerit, 
.  .  .  praecipimus  et  omnino  contradici- 
mus,  ut  missam  non  cantet,  neque 
evangelium  vel  epistolam  ac  missam 
legat,  neque  in  presbiderio  ad  divina 
officia  cum  iis  qui  praefatae  constitutioni 
obedientes  fuerint,  maneat ;  neque  par¬ 
tem  ab  ecclesia  suscipiat. — Concil.  Ro¬ 
man.  ann.  1059  c.  3. 

It  is  evident  here  that  the  oppro¬ 
brious  epithet  “concubine”  is  applied 
to  those  who  were  as  legally  wives  as  it 
was  possible  to  make  them.  Damiani, 
indeed,  admits  it,  and  even  intimates 
that  concubine  was  too  honorable  a 
word  to  be  applied  to  the  wives  of 
priests — “  Illorum  vero  clericorum  fem- 
inas,  qui  matrimonia  nequeunt  legali 
jure  contrahere,  non  conjuges  sed  con- 
cubinas  potius,  sive  prostibula  congrue 
possumus  appellare  ”  (Opusc.  xvm. 
Diss.  iii.  c.  2).  After  this  period  it  will 
be  found  that  the  wives  of  priests  were 
rarely  dignified  with  the  title  of  “  ux- 
ores,”  although  ordination  was  not  yet 
an  impediment  destructive  of  marriage. 

It  is  as  well  to  observe  here  that  at 
this  period  and  for  some  time  later  the 


position  of  the  concubine  had  not  the 
odium  attaching  to  it  by  modem  man¬ 
ners,  and  this  should  be  borne  in  mind 
when  reviewing  the  morals  of  the  Mid¬ 
dle  Ages.  The  connection  was  a  rec¬ 
ognized  and  almost  a  legal  one,  follow¬ 
ing  the  traditions  of  the  Roman  law, 
by  which  it  was  legitimate  and  perma¬ 
nent,  so  long  as  the  parties  respectively 
remained  unmarried.  A  man  could 
not  have  a  wife  and  concubine  at  the 
same  time  (Pauli  Sentent.  n.  20),  nor 
could  he  legally  have  two  concubines 
together  (Novel,  xvm.  c.  5).  Not 
only  were  such  regulations  thus  pro¬ 
mulgated  by  Christian  emperors,  but 
the  relationship  was  duly  recognized 
by  the  Christian  church.  The  first 
council  of  Toledo,  in  398,  enjoined 
upon  the  faithful  “  tan  turn  aut  unius 
mulieris,  aut  uxoris  aut  concubinae,  ut 
ei  placuerit,  sit  conjunctione  contentus” 
(Concil.  Toletan.  I.  c.  17),  showing 
that  either  connection  apparently  was 
legitimate,  and  this  is  quoted  at  the 
commencement  of  the  tenth  century, 
as  still  in  force,  by  Regino  (De  Discip. 
Eccles.  Lib.  n.  c.  100).  A  half  century 
later,  about  450,  Leo  I.  was  actually 
appealed  to  to  decide  whether  a  man 
who  quitted  a  concubine  and  took  a 
wife  committed  bigamy — which  Leo 
reasonably  enough  answered  in  the 
negative  (Leon.  Epist.  xc.  c.  5).  The 
principle  of  the  Roman  law  was  still 
the  rule  of  the  church  in  the  9th  cen¬ 
tury,  for  a  Roman  synod  held  by 
Eugenius  II.  in  826  declared  “  Ut  non 
liceat  uno  tempore  duas  habere  ux- 
ores,  uxoremve  et  concubinam.  De 
illo  vero  qui  cum  uxore  concubinam 
habet,  praecipit,  ut  si  admonitus  earn 
a  se  abjicere  noluerit,  communione 
privetur.”  (Pertz,  Legum  T.  II.  P.  ii. 
p.  12.)  The  view  entertained  of  the 
matter  at  the  time  under  consideration 
may  be  gathered  from  a  canon  of  the 
councils  of  Rome,  in  1052  and  1063, 
suspending  from  communion  the  lay¬ 
man  who  had  a  wife  and  concubine  at 
the  same  time  (Concil.  Roman,  ann. 
1059  c.  12:  ann.  1063  c.  10) — whence 
we  may  deduce  that  a  concubine  alone 
was  hardly  considered  irregular.  Dur¬ 
ing  the  latter  part  of  the  succeeding 
century  we  find  the  concubine  a  recog- 


NICHOLAS  II. 


197 


the  credit  of  procuring  this  legislation.1  Nicholas,  whether  acting 
under  the  impulsion  of  Hildebrand  and  Damiani,  or  from  his  own 
convictions,  followed  up  the  reform  with  vigor.  During  the  same 
year  he  visited  Southern  Italy,  and  by  his  decided  proceedings  at  the 
council  of  Melfi  endeavored  to  put  an  end  to  the  sacerdotal  marriages 
which  were  openly  practised  everywhere  throughout  that  region,  and 
the  Bishop  of  Trani  was  deposed  as  an  example  and  warning  to 
others.2  Damiani  was  also  intrusted  wTith  a  mission  to  Milan  for  the 
same  purpose,  of  which  more  anon. 


nized  institution  in  Scotland,  for  the 
laws  of  William  the  Lion,  after  stating 
that  the  wife  was  not  bound'  to  reveal 
the  crimes  of  her  husband,  adds  “De 
concubina  vero  et  de  familia  domus 
non  est  ita ;  quia  ipsi  tenentur  revelare 
maleficia  magistri  sui,  aut  debent  a 
servitio  suo  recedere  ”  (Statut.  Will- 
elmi  c.  xix.  $  9).  In  England,  late 
in  the  thirteenth  century,  Bracton 
speaks  of  the  “concubina  legitima  ”  as 
entitled  to  certain  rights  and  considera¬ 
tion  (Lib.  hi.  Tract,  ii.  c.  28  \  1,  and 
Lib.  iv.  Tract,  vi.  c.  8  \  4).  In  Spain, 
at  the  same  period,  the  son  of  an  un¬ 
married  noble  by  a  concubine,  was 
noble  (Juan  Perez  de  Lara,  in  Arch. 
Seld.  130,  Bib.  Bodl.),  and  in  the  Dan¬ 
ish  code  of  Waldemar  II.,  which  was 
in  force  from  1280  to  1683,  there  is  a 
provision  that  a  concubine  kept  openly 
for  three  years  shall  he  held  to  be  a 
legitimate  and  legal  wife  (Leg.  Cimbric. 
Lib.  i.  cap.  xxvii.  Ed.  Ancher)  ;  while 
the  elaborate  provisions  for  the  division 
of  estates  between  legitimate  and  ille¬ 
gitimate  children,  contained  in  the  code 
compiled  by  Andreas  Archbishop  of 
Lunden,  in  the  13th  century,  show  that 
certain  legal  rights  were  recognized  in 
the  latter  (Legg.  Scan.  Provin.  Ed. 
Thorsen  pp.  110-2).  Indeed,  in  the 
Norwegian  law  of  that  period,  when  the 
king  left  no  legitimate  sons  the  crown 
descended  to  illegitimates  (Jarnsida, 
Kristendoms-Balkr,  c.  in.).  In  Bi- 
gorre,  concubines,  under  the  name  of 
Massipia ,  were  recognized  by  law,  and 
formal  notarial  contracts  were  drawn 
up,  as  late  as  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  specifying  the  price  to  be  paid 
and  the  duration  of  the  connection  ; 
and  when  the  man  was  already  married 
he  sometimes  engaged  to  marry  the 
massipia  in  case  of  his  wife’s  death 
during  the  term  (Lagreze,  Hist,  du 
Droit  dans  les  Pyrenees,  Paris,  1867, 


p.  377).  We  must  therefore  hear  in 
mind  that,  until  the  rule  of  sacerdotal 
celibacy  became  rigorously  enforced, 
the  “concubina”  of  the  canons  gen¬ 
erally  means  a  wife,  and  that  for  some 
time  afterwards  the  concubine  was  by 
no  means  necessarily  the  shameless 
woman  implied  under  the  modern  ac¬ 
ceptation  of  the  term. 

1  Hujus  autem  constitutionis  maxime 
fuit  auctor  Hildehrandus,  tunc  Bomanae 
ecclesiae  archidiaconus,  haereticis  max¬ 
ime  infestus. — Bernaldi  Chron.  ann. 
1061.  Benzo  declares,  in  his  slashing 
way,  stigmatizing  Hildebrand  as  a 
Sarabite,  or  wandering  monk,  “  De 
cetero  pascebat  suum  Nicholaum  Pran- 
dellus  in  Lateranensi  palatio,  quasi 
asinum  in  stahulo.  Nullum  erat  opus 
Nicholaitae,  nisi  per  verbum  Sarabaitas” 
(Comment,  de  Beb.  Henr.  IY.  Lib. 
vii.  c.  2).  The  verses  of  Damiani  on 
the  influence  of  Hildebrand  are  too  well 
known  to  quote. 

2  .  .  .  Hie  [Nicholaus]  ecclesiastica 

propter 

Ad  partes  illas  tractanda  negotia 
venit ; 

Namque  sacerdotes,  levitae,  clericus 
omnis 

Hac  regione  palam  se  conjugio  socia- 
bant. 

Concilium  celebrans  ibi,  Papa  faventi- 
bus  illi 

Praesulibus  centum  jus  ad  synodale 
vocatis, 

Ferre  Sacerdotes  monet,  altarisque 
ministros 

Arma  pudicitiae,  vocat  hos  et  prmcipit 
esse 

Ecclesiae  sponsos,  quia  non  est  jure 
sacerdos 

Luxuriae  cultor  :  sic  extirpavit  ab  illis 

Partibus  uxores  omnino  presbyter- 
orum. 

(Gulielmi  Appuli  de  Normann. 
Lib.  II.) 


198 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


Nor  did  Nicholas  confine  his  efforts  to  Italy.  His  legates  in 
other  countries  endeavored  to  enforce  the  canons,  and  apparently  had 
little  difficulty  in  obtaining  the  adoption  of  stringent  regulations — 
the  more  easily  acceded  to  that  they  were  utterly  disregarded. 
Thus  his  legate  Stephen,  early  in  1060,  held  councils  at  Vienne  and 
Tours,  where  the  prohibitions  of  the  synod  of  Rome  were  agreed  to, 
and  those  who  did  not  at  once  abandon  either  their  women  or  their 
benefices  were  declared  to  be  degraded  forever,  without  hope  of  resti¬ 
tution.1 

In  practice,  however,  all  these  measures  of  reform  were  scarcely 
felt  except  by  the  lower  grades  of  the  ecclesiastical  body.  The 
prelates,  whose  lives  were  equally  flagitious,  and  far  more  damaging 
to  the  reputation  and  purity  of  the  church,  were  enabled  virtually  to 
escape.  The  storm  passed  beneath  them,  and  with  few  exceptions 
persecuted  only  those  who  were  powerless  to  oppose  anything  but 
passive  resistance.  The  uncompromising  zeal  of  Damiani  was  not 
likely  to  let  a  temporizing  lenity  so  misplaced  and  so  fatal  to  the 
success  of  the  cause  remain  unrebuked ;  and  he  calls  to  it  the  atten¬ 
tion  of  Nicholas,  stigmatizing  the  toleration  of  episcopal  sins  as  an 
absurdity  no  longer  to  be  endured.2  The  occasion  of  this  exhorta¬ 
tion  was  a  commission  intrusted  bythe  pope  to  Damiani,  to  hold  a 
friendly  conference  with  the  prelates,  and  to  induce  them  to  reform 
their  evil  ways  without  forcing  the  authorities  to  the  scandal  of  public 
proceedings.  The  fear  of  such  results  and  the  fiery  eloquence  of 
Damiani  were  alike  unheeded.  The  bishops  confessed  themselves 
unequal  to  the  task  of  preserving  their  chastity,  and  indifferent  to 
the  remote  contingency  of  punishment  which  had  so  often  been  in¬ 
effectually  threatened  that  its  capacity  for  exciting  apprehension  had 
become  exhausted.  With  all  the  coarseness  of  monastic  asceticism, 
Damiani  describes  the  extent  of  the  evil,  and  its  public  and  unblush¬ 
ing  exhibition;  the  families  which  grew  and  increased  around  the 
prelates,  the  relationships  which  were  ostentatiously  acknowledged, 
and  the  scandals  perpetrated  in  the  church  of  God.  In  the  boldest 
strain  he  then  incites  the  pope  to  action,  blames  his  misplaced  clem¬ 
ency,  and  urges  the  degradation  of  all  offenders,  irrespective  of  rank, 


1  Concil.  Turon.  ann.  1060  c.  6. 

2  Porro  autem  nos  contra  divina 
mandata,  personarum  acceptores,  in 
minoribus  quidam  sacerdotibus  luxuriae 


inquinamenta  persequimur ;  in  epi- 
scopis  autem,  quodnimis  absurdum  est, 
per  silentii  tolerantiam  veneramur. — 
i  Damiani  Opusc.  xvn.  c.  1. 


FAILURE  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 


199 


pointing  out  the  impossibility  of  reforming  the  priesthood  if  the 
bishops  are  allowed  full  and  undisturbed  license.1 

This  shows  that  even  if  the  machinery  of  ecclesiastical  authority 
was  at  work  to  correct  the  errors  of  the  plebeian  clergy,  it  was  only 
local  and  sporadic  in  its  efforts.  In  some  favored  dioceses,  perhaps, 
blessed  with  a  puritan  bishop,  the  decrees  of  the  innumerable  coun¬ 
cils  may  have  been  put  in  force,  but  in  the  great  body  of  the  church 
the  evil  remained  unaltered.  During  this  very  year,  1060,  Nicholas 
again  found  it  necessary  to  promulgate  a  decretal  ordering  priests  to 
quit  their  wives  or  resign  their  position,  and  this  in  terms  which 
prove  how  utterly  futile  had  been  all  previous  fulminations.  He  also 
manifested  some  consideration  for  temporal  necessities  by  allowing 
the  discarded  wives  to  live  with  their  husbands  under  proper  super¬ 
vision.2 

How  complete  was  the  disregard  of  these  commands  is  well  illus¬ 
trated  by  an  epistle  which  about  this  time  Damiani  addressed  to  the 
chaplains  of  Godfrey  the  Bearded,  Duke  of  Tuscany.  From  this  we 
learn  that  these  prominent  ecclesiastics  openly  defended  sacerdotal 
marriage,  pronounced  it  canonical,  and  were  ready  to  sustain  their 
position  in  controversy.3  As  Duke  Godfrey,  with  the  pious  Beatrice 
his  wife,  was  the  leading  potentate  in  Italy,  and  as  his  territories 
were  in  close  proximity  to  Rome  itself,  it  is  evident  that  the  reform 
so  laboriously  prosecuted  for  the  previous  ten  or  fifteen  years  had 
thus  far  accomplished  little. 

Parties  were  now  beginning  to  define  themselves.  The  reformers, 
irritated  by  their  want  of  success,  were  for  more  stringent  measures, 
and  when  the  canonical  punishments  of  degradation  and  excommuni¬ 
cation  were  derided  and  defied,  they  were  ready,  as  we  shall  see 


1  Sanctis  eorum  femoribus  volui  seras 
apponere.  Tentavi  genitalibus  sacer- 
dotum  (ut  ita  loquar)  continent^  fibu¬ 
las  adhibere.  .  .  .  Hujus  autem  capituli 
nudam  saltern  promissionem  tremulis 
prolatam  labiis  difficilius  extorquemus. 
Primo,  quia  fastigium  castitatis  attin- 
gere  se  posse  desperant ;  deinde  quia 
svnodali  se  plectendos  esse  sententia 
propter  luxurise  vitium  non  formidant. 
.  .  .  Si  enim  malum  hoc  esset  occul- 
tum,  fuerat  fortassis  utcunque  feren- 
dum ;  sed,  ah  scelus !  omni  pudore 
postposito,  pestis  haec  in  tantum  pro- 
rupit  audaciam,  ut  per  ora  populi 


volitent  loca  scortantium,  nomina  con- 
cubinarum,  socerorum  quoque  vocabula 
simul  et  socruum  .  .  .  postremo,  ubi 
omnis  dubietas  tollitur,  uteri  tumentes 
et  pueri  vagientes  etc. — Damiani  Opusc. 
XVII. 

2  Decret.  Nicolai  PP.  c.  3,  4  (Ba- 
luz.  et  Mansi  II.  118-9). 

3  “  Dogmatizatis  enim  sacri  ministros 
altaris  jure  posse  mulieribus  permisceri 

Jam  vero  quod  impudenter 
asseritis,  ministros  altaris  conjugio  de- 
bere  sociari  etc.” — Damiani  Lib.  v. 
Epist.  13. 


200 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


hereafter  at  Milan,  to  have  recourse  to  the  secular  arm,  and  to  invoke 
the  aid  of  sword  and  lance.  The  clergy,  finding  that  passive  resist¬ 
ance  did  not  wear  out  the  zeal  of  their  persecutors,  that  the  storm 
promised  to  be  endless,  and  warned  by  the  fate  of  the  Milanese,  were 
prepared  to  adopt  an  aggressive  policy,  and  to  seek  their  safety  in 
revolutionizing  the  central  authority.  Perhaps  the  bishops,  whose 
silence  had  been  secured  by  the  toleration  so  distasteful  to  Damiani, 
began  to  feel  the  pressure  which  he  was  bringing  to  bear  upon  them, 
and  to  look  forward  with  apprehension  to  the  unknown  evils  of 
the  future.  If  so,  they  were  ready  to  make  common  cause  with 
their  flocks,  and  throw  into  the  scale  the  immense  influence  due  to 
their  sacred  character  and  temporal  power.  Thus  only  the  occasion 
was  wanting  for  an  open  rupture,  and  that  occasion  was  furnished 
by  the  death  of  Nicholas  in  July,  1061. 

The  factions  of  the  day  had  alienated  a  powerful  portion  of  the 
Roman  barons  from  the  papal  party  as  represented  by  Hildebrand. 
They  at  once  united  with  the  Lombard  clergy  in  addressing  a  depu¬ 
tation  to  the  young  Henry  IV.,  who  was  still  under  the  tutelage  of 
his  mother  Agnes,  offering  him  a  golden  crown  and  the  title  of 
Patrician.  The  empire  "was  not  indisposed  to  vindicate  its  old  pre¬ 
rogatives,  recently  annulled  by  the  initial  act  of  Nicholas  limiting 
the  right  of  papal  election  to  the  Roman  clergy.  The  overtures 
were  therefore  welcomed,  and  while  Anselmo,  Bishop  of  Lucca,  was 
chosen  in  Rome,  October  1st,  1061,  assuming  the  name  of  Alexander 
II.,  on  the  28th  of  the  same  month  a  rival  election  took  place  in 
Germany,  by  winch  Cadalus,  Bishop  of  Parma,  was  invested  with 
the  perilous  dignity  of  Antipope,  and  divided  the  allegiance  of 
Christendom  under  the  title  of  Honorius  II.  At  least  two  Italian 
bishops  lent  their  suffrages  to  these  proceedings — those  of  Yercelli 
and  Piacenza — as  representatives  of  the  Lombard  interest ;  and,  if 
the  testimony  of  Damiani  is  to  be  believed,  they  w~ere  men  whose 
dissolute  lives  fitly  represented  the  license  which  the  reformers 
asserted  to  be  the  principal  object  of  the  schismatics.1 

The  married  or  concubinary  clergy  were  now  no  longer  merely 
isolated  criminals,  to  be  punished  more  or  less  severely  for  infractions 
of  discipline.  They  were  a  united  body,  who  boldly  proclaimed  the 
correctness  of  their  course,  and  defended  themselves  by  argument  as 


1  Ad  Cadaloum  Lib.  i.  Epist.  20. 


THE  ANTI-POPE  CADALUS. 


201 


well  as  by  political  intrigues  and  military  operations.  They  thus 
became  offenders  of  a  far  deeper  dye,  for  the  principles  of  the  church 
led  irrevocably  to  the  conclusion,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  that  he 
who  was  guilty  of  immorality,  knowing  it  to  be  wrong,  was  far  less 
criminal  than  he  who  married,  believing  it  to  be  right.1  What  before 
had  been  a  transgression,  to  be  redeemed  by  penance  and  repentance, 
became  heresy — an  awful  word  in  those  fierce  times.  The  odious 
name  of  Nicolites  wTas  speedily  fastened  on  the  schismatics,  and  the 
Apocalyptic  denunciations  of  St.  John  were  universally  held  appli¬ 
cable  to  them.  According  to  Damiani,  they  supported  Cadalus  in 
the  expectation  that  his  success  would  lead  to  a  modification  in  the 
discipline  of  the  church,  by  which  the  license  to  marry  would  be 
accorded  to  all  ecclesiastics.2 

That  support  was  efficient,  and  it  was  shortly  needed.  A  revolution 
suddenly  occurred  in  the  politics  of  Germany.  Some  dissatisfied 
nobles  and  prelates  conspired  to  obtain  power  by  overthrowing  the 
regency  of  the  dowager  Empress  Agnes.  A  stroke  of  daring 
treachery  put  them  in  possession  of  the  person  of  the  boy-king,  and 
the  arch-conspirator  Hanno  of  Cologne  earned  his  canonization  by 
reversing  at  once  the  policy  of  the  previous  administration.  In  a 
solemn  council  held  at  Osber  in  1062,  the  pretensions  of  Cadalus 
were  repudiated,  and  Alexander  II.  was  recognized  as  pope.  Still 
Cadalus  did  not  despair,  but  with  the  aid  of  the  Lombard  clergy  he 
raised  forces  and  marched  on  Rome,  relying  on  his  adherents  within 
the  walls.  They  admitted  him  into  the  Leonine  city,  where  he  threw 
himself  into  the  impregnable  castle  of  San  Angelo.  Immediately 
besieged  by  the  Romans,  he  resolutely  held  out  for  two  years,  in  spite 
of  incredible  privations,  but  at  length  he  sought  safety  in  flight  with 
but  a  single  follower.  Meanwhile  his  party,  as  a  political  body,  had 
become  broken  up,  and  though  Henry,  Archbishop  of  Ravenna,  still 
adhered  to  him,  he  was  powerless  to  maintain  his  claims.  Finally, 


1  In  1060,  Cardinal  Humbert  of 
Silva-Candida,  in  combating  the  pre¬ 
vailing  vice  of  simony,  made  use  of 
this  argument,  reasoning  that  an  im¬ 
moral  priest  may  be  suspended  or  may 
be  tolerated  in  hope  of  amendment, 
but  if  he  trenches  on  heresy,  there  can 
be  neither  hope  nor  mercy  for  him 
(Humbert.  Cardinal,  adv.  Simoniac. 
Lib.  hi.  c.  43).  Damiani  applied  this 
to  the  defenders  of  marriage  with  all 
his  vigor.  “  Qui  nimirum  dum  cor- 


ruunt,  impudici ;  dum  defendere  ni- 
tuntur,  merito  judicantur  haeretici” 
(Opusc.  xviii.  Diss.  ii.  c.  8).  “Nam 
cum  peccat  homo,  quasi  in  puteum 
labitur ;  cum  vero  peccata  defendit, 
os  putei  super  eum,  ne  pateat  egressus, 
urgetur.  .  .  Hoc  autem  inter  peccato- 
rem  et  hasreticum  distat  :  quia  peccator 
est  qui  delinquit,  haereticus  autem  qui 
peccatum  per  pravum  dogma  defendit’ ’ 
(Opusc.  xxiv.  Praef.). 

2  Opusc.  xviii.  Diss.  ii.  c.  8. 


202 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


in  1067,  Alexander  held  a  council  at  Mantua,  cleared  his  election  of 
imputed  irregularity,  and  was  universally  recognized. 

During  this  period,  the  “Nicolitan”  clergy  by  no  means  aban¬ 
doned  their  tenets.  In  1063,  as  soon  as  he  could  feel  reasonably 
assured  of  his  eventual  success,  Alexander  assembled  more  than  a 
hundred  bishops  in  council  at  Rome,  where  he  emphatically  repeated 
the  canon  promulgated  in  1059  by  Nicholas  II.,  which  was  not  only 
a  proclamation  of  his  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  reform,  but  an  admission 
that  the  legislation  of  his  predecessor  had  thus  far  proved  fruitless. 
Damiani,  also,  labored  unceasingly  with  argument  and  exhortation, 
but  the  vehemence  of  his  declamation  only  shows  how  widely  extended 
and  how  powerful  the  heresy  still  was.  We  shall  see  hereafter  that 
on  a  mission  to  Milan,  to  reduce  the  married  clergy  to  obedience,  he 
barely  escaped  with  his  life ;  and  on  another  to  Lodi,  with  the  same 
object,  the  schismatics,  after  exhausting  argument,  in  support  of 
priestly  marriage,  threatened  him  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and 
again  his  saintly  dignity  came  near  being  enhanced  by  the  honors  of 
martyrdom.1  Even  the  restriction  upon  second  marriages  was  occa¬ 
sionally  lost  sight  of,  and  such  most  irregular  unions  were  celebrated 
with  all  the  ceremony  and  rejoicings  that  were  customary  among 
laymen  in  their  public  nuptials.2  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  pious 
fervor  which  habitually  stigmatized  the  wives  as  harlots  and  the 
husbands  as  unbridled  adulterers,  Damiani  himself  allows  us  to  see 
that  the  marriage  relation  was  preserved  with  thorough  fidelity  on 
the  part  of  the  women,  and  was  compatible  with  learning,  decency, 
and  strict  attention  to  religious  duty  by  the  men.  Urging  the 
wTives  to  quit  their  husbands,  he  finds  it  necessary  to  combat  their 
scruples  at  breaking  what  was  to  them  a  solemn  engagement,  fortified 
with  all  legal  provisions  and  religious  rites,  but  which  he  pronounces 
a  frivolous  and  meaningless  ceremony.3  So,  in  deploring  the  habitual 
practice  of  marriage  among  the  Piedmontese  clergy,  he  regards  it  as 


1  Opusc.  xviii.  Diss.  ii.  c.  3. 

2  Obeunte  igitur  pellice,  viduatus 
adjecit  iterare  conjugium.  Quid  plura? 
Confcederat  sibi  quasi  tabularum  lege 
prostibulum,  amicorum  atque  con- 
finium  congregat  nuptiali  more  con- 
ventum,  epulaturis  etiam  totius  afflu¬ 
ent^  providet  apparatum — Damiani 
Opusc.  xviii.  Diss.  ii.  c.  G. 

3  Nec  vos  terreat  quod  forte,  non 


dicam  fidei  sed  perfidiae,  vos  annulus 
subarrhavit :  quod  rata  et  monimenta 
dotalia  notarius  quasi  matrimonii  jure 
conscripsit;  quod  juramentum  ad  con- 
flrmandam  quodammodo  conjuii  co- 
pulam  utrinque  processit.  Totum  hoc 
quod  videlicet  apud  alios  est  conjugii 
nrmamentum,  inter  vos  vanum  judi- 
catur  et  frivolum — Opusc.  xviii.  Diss. 
ii.  c.  7. 


HIS  TIRELESS  ZEAL. 


203 


the  only  blot  upon  men  who  otherwise  appeared  to  him  as  a  chorus 
of  angels,  and  as  shining  lights  in  the  church.1 

Such  considerations  as  these,  however,  had  no  influence  in  dimin¬ 
ishing  Damiani’s  zeal.  To  Cunibert,  Bishop  of  Turin,  whose 
spiritual  flock  he  thus  so  much  admired,  he  addressed,  about  1065, 
an  epistle  reproaching  him  with  his  criminal  laxity  in  permitting 
such  transgressions  in  his  diocese,  and  urging  him  strenuously  to 
undertake  the  reform  which  was  so  necessary  to  the  purity  of  the 
church.2  Cunibert  apparently  did  not  respond  to  the  exhortation, 
for  Damiani  proceeded  to  appeal  to  the  temporal  sovereign  of  Savoy 
and  Piedmont,  Adelaide,  widow  of  Ilumbert-aux-Blanches-Mains, 
who  was  then  regent.  In  an  elaborate  epistle  he  urges  her  to  attack 
the  wives,  while  her  bishops  shall  coerce  the  husbands ;  but  if  the 
latter  neglect  that  duty,  he  invites  her  to  interpose  with  the  secular 
power,  and  thus  avert  from  her  house  and  her  country  the  Divine 
wrath  which  must  else  overtake  them.3  That  so  strict  a  churchman 
as  Damiani  should  not  only  tolerate  but  advise  the  exercise  of  tem¬ 
poral  authority  over  ecclesiastics,  and  this,  too,  in  a  matter  purely 
ecclesiastical,  shows  how  completely  the  one  idea  had  become  domi¬ 
nant  in  his  mind,  since  he  was  willing  to  sacrifice  to  it  the  privileges 
and  immunities  for  which  the  church  had  been  struggling,  by  fair 
means  and  foul,  for  six  centuries.  It  would  appear,  moreover,  that 
this  was  not  the  first  time  that  potentates  had  been  allowed,  or  had 
assumed,  to  exercise  power  in  the  matter,  for  Damiani  cautions  the 
Countess  Adelaide  not  to  follow  the  example  of  some  evil-minded 
magnates  and  make  the  pretence  of  reformation  an  excuse  for  spoiling 
the  church.4 

The  zeal  of  the  indefatigable  Damiani  continued  to  be  as  uncon¬ 
querable  as  the  stubbornness  of  his  adversaries,  and  some  two  years 
later  we  find  him  again  at  work.  The  date  of  106T  is  generally 
attributed  to  a  letter  which  he  addressed  to  Peter,  Cardinal  Arch¬ 
priest  of  the  Lateran,  stimulating  him  to  renewed  exertions  in  extir¬ 
pating  this  foul  disgrace  to  the  church,  and  arguing  at  great  length 
in  reply  to  the  reasons  and  excuses  with  which  the  clerical  Benedicks 
continued  to  defend  their  vile  heresy.5 


1  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  ii.  Prsef. 

2  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  ii. 

3  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  iii.  c.  1,2. 


4  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  iii.  c.  8. 

5  Opusc.  xvm.  Diss.  i. 


204 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


In  all  this  controversy,  it  is  instructive  to  observe  how  Damiani 
shows  himself  to  be  the  pure  model  of  monkish  asceticism,  untainted 
with  any  practical  wisdom  and  unwarped  by  any  earthly  considera¬ 
tions.  When  Hildebrand  struggled  for  sacerdotal  celibacy,  the 
shrewdness  of  the  serpent  guided  the  innocence  of  the  dove,  and  he 
fought  for  what  he  knew  would  prove  a  weapon  of  tremendous  power 
in  securing  for  the  church  the  theocracy  which  was  his  pure  ideal  of 
human  institutions.  Hot  a  thought  of  the  worldly  advantages 
consequent  upon  the  reform  appears  to  have  crossed  the  mind  of 
Damiani.  To  him  it  was  simply  a  matter  of  conscience  that  the 
ministers  of  Christ  should  be  adorned  with  the  austere  purity  through 
which  alone  lay  the  path  to  salvation.  Accordingly  the  arguments 
which  he  employs  in  his  endless  disputations  carefully  avoid  the 
practical  reasons  which  were  the  principal  motive  for  enforcing  celi¬ 
bacy.  His  main  reliance  is  on  the  assumption  that,  as  Christ  was 
born  of  a  virgin,  so  he  should  be  served  and  the  Eucharist  be  handled 
only  by  virgins  ;  and  his  subsidiary  logic  consists  of  mystical  inter¬ 
pretations  of  passages  in  the  Jewish  history  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Phineas,  of  course,  affords  a  favorite  and  oft-repeated  argument  and 
illustration.  Allusions  to  Ahimelech  can  also  be  understood,  but 
the  reasoning  based  upon  the  tower  of  Sichem,  the  linen  girdle  of 
Jeremiah,  and  the  catastrophe  of  Cain  and  Abel  is  convincing  only 
as  to  the  unworldliness  of  the  recluse  of  Avellana. 

Notwithstanding  all  his  learning  and  eloquence,  the  authority  of 
his  name,  the  lustre  of  his  example,  and  the  tireless  efforts  of  his 
fiery  energy,  the  cause  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself  did  not 
advance.  The  later  years  of  Alexander’s  pontificate  afford  unmis¬ 
takable  indications  that  the  puritan  party  were  becoming  discouraged ; 
that  they  were  disposed  to  abate  some  of  their  demands,  and  were 
ready  to  make  concessions  to  the  refractory  spirit  which  refused 
obedience  in  both  principle  and  practice.  Thus,  in  1068,  a  decretal 
addressed  to  the  authorities  of  Dalmatia  merely  threatens  suspension 
until  satisfaction  is  made  by  those  who  marry  in  orders  or  who  refuse 
to  abandon  their  wives.1  A  somewhat  different  position  was  taken 


1  Alex.  II.  Epist.  125. — Batthyani 
(Leg.  Eccles.  Hungar.  I.  407)  remarks 
that  this  lenity  arose'from  the  fact  that 
otherwise  divine  service  would  have 
ceased — “  omnes  ecclesiae  a  divinis  offi- 
ciis  vacassent.” 

It  is  also  observable  that  subdeacons 


are  not ’‘included  in  this  prohibition — 
a  ^remarkable  exemption,  since  by  this 
time  their  subjection  to  the  law  of 
celibacy  had  become  a  settled  rule  in 
the  Roman  'church.  I  may  here  re¬ 
mark  that  I  had  collected  considerable 
material  to  trace  the  varying  practice 


ALEXANDER  II.  RECEDES. 


205 


with  the  Venetians.  An  epistle  to  the  Patriarch  of  Grado  orders  the 
deprivation  of  those  who  live  in  open  and  undisguised  concubinage, 
but  significantly  confines  its  penalties  to  notorious  infractions  of  the 
rule,  and  leaves  to  God  the  investigation  of  such  as  may  be  prudently 
concealed.1  This  manifests  a  willingness  to  temporize  with  offenders 
whose  respect  for  papal  authority  would  induce  them  to  abstain  from 
defiant  disobedience — a  pusillanimous  tempting  of  hypocrisy  to  wdiich 
the  bolder  Hildebrand  could  never  have  given  his  consent.  A  prin¬ 
ciple  of  great  importance,  moreover,  was  abandoned  when,  in  10T0, 
Alexander  assented  to  the  consecration  of  the  bishop-elect  of  Le 
Mans,  who  was  the  son  of  a  priest  ;2  and  when  he  stated  that  this 
was  not  a  precedent  for  the  future,  but  merely  a  concession  to  the 
evil  of  the  times,  his  laxity  was  the  more  impressive,  since  he  thus 
admitted  his  violation  of  the  canons.  He  subsequently  even  enlarged 
this  special  permission  into  a  general  rule,  wfith  merely  the  saving 
clause  that  the  proposed  incumbent  should  be  more  worthy  than  his 
competitors.3  Alexander,  moreover,  maintained  in  force  the  ancient 
rule  that  no  married  man  could  assume  monastic  vows  unless  his  wife 
gave  her  free  consent,  and  entered  a  convent  at  the  same  time.4  We 
shall  see  that  in  little  more  than  half  a  century  the  progress  of  sacer¬ 
dotalism  rendered  the  sacrament  of  marriage  powerless  in  comparison 
with  the  vows  of  religion. 

Alexander  clearly  had  not  in  him  the  stuff  of  which  persecutors 
and  reformers  are  made,  as,  indeed,  his  merciful  liberality  in  ex¬ 
tending  over  the  Jews  throughout  Europe  the  protection  of  the  Holy 


with  regard  to  the  subdiaconate,  hut  as 
it  involves  no  principle,  merely  depend¬ 
ing  in  earlier  times  upon  the  local  cus¬ 
tom  as  to  the  functions  of  that  grade, 
the  discussion  would  scarcely  repay  the 
space  that  it  would  occupy. 

1  De  manifestis  loquimur ;  secre- 
torum  autem  cognitor  et  judex  Deus 
est. — Alex.  II.  Epist.  118. 

2  Cenomanensem  electum,  pro  eo 
quod  filius  sacerdotis  dicitur,  si  caeterae 
virtutes  in  eum  conveniunt,  non  reji- 
cimus  ;  sed,  suffragantibus  meritis, 

atienter  suscipimus ;  non  tamen  ut 
oc  pro  regula  in  posterum  assumatur, 
sed  ad  tempus  ecclesise  periculo  con- 
sulitur. — Gratian.  Dist.  lvi.  c.  13. 

3  Nam  pro  eo  quod  filius  sacerdotis 
dicitur,  si  caeterae  virtutes  in  eum  con- 
veniant,  non  rejicimus,  sed  suffragan- 


tibus  meritis  connivendo,  eum  recipi- 
mus. — Alex.  II.  Epist.  133.  Baronius 
attributes  to  this  the  date  of  1071. 

The  contrast  between  the  weakness 
of  Alexander  and  the  unbending  ri¬ 
gidity  of  his  successor,  Hildebrand, 
is  well  shown  by  comparing  this  un¬ 
limited  acceptance  of  priestly  offspring 
with  the  refusal  of  the  latter  to  permit 
the  elevation  of  a  clerk  requested  by 
both  his  bishop  and  the  King  of  Aragon, 
simply  because  he  was  illegitimate, 
although  in  other  respects  admitted 
to  be  unexceptionable  (Gregor.  VII. 
Lib.  n.  Epist.  50).  We  have  already 
seen  that  even  amid  the  license  which 
prevailed  during  the  early  part  of  the 
century,  some  German  bishops  ha¬ 
bitually  refused  orders  to  the  sons  of 
priests. 

4  Alex.  II.  Epist.  112. 


206 


PETER  DAMIANI. 


See  would  sufficiently  demonstrate.  At  length  he,  too,  was  released 
from  earthly  cares,  and  on  the  day  after  his  decease,  on  April  22, 
1073,  his  place  was  filled  by  the  man  who  of  all  others  was  the  most 
perfect  impersonation  of  the  aggressive  churchmanship  of  the  age. 

Before  proceeding,  however,  to  sketch  the  stormy  pontificate  of 
Hildebrand  in  its  relation  to  our  subject,  I  must  pause  to  relate  the 
episode  of  the  Milanese  clergy.  The  struggle  in  that  city  to  enforce 
the  ascetic  principles  of  the  reformers  gives  so  perfect  an  inside  view 
of  the  reformation  itself,  and  its  various  stages  have  been  handed 
down  to  us  with  so  much  minuteness  by  contemporary  writers,  that 
it  deserves  to  be  treated  by  itself  as  a  disconnected  whole. 


XIII. 


MILAN. 


In  the  primitive  ages  of  the  church,  Milan  was  at  the  head  of  the 
Northern  Vicariate  of  Italy,  as  Rome  was  of  the  Southern.  When 
the  preponderance  of  the  latter  city  became  established,  the  glory  of 
St.  Ambrose  shed  a  lustre  over  his  capital  which  the  true  Milanese 
fondly  regarded  as  rivalling  that  of  St.  Peter  and  the  superiority  of 
Rome  was  grudgingly  admitted.  In  the  eleventh  century,  Milan  is 
found  occupying  the  chief  place  among  the  Lombard  cities,  virtually 
governed  by  its  archbishop,  whose  temporal  as  well  as  spiritual 
power  rendered  his  position  one  of  great  influence  and  importance. 
Yet  even  at  that  early  period,  the  republican  spirit  was  already 
developed,  and  the  city  was  divided  into  factions,  as  the  nobles  and 
citizens  struggled  for  alternate  supremacy. 

Milan  was  moreover  the  headquarters  of  the  hidden  Manichseism 
which,  after  surviving  centuries  of  persecution  in  the  East,  was  now 
secretly  invading  Europe  through  Bulgaria,  and  had  already  at¬ 
tracted  the  vigilant  attention  of  the  church  in  localities  widely  sepa¬ 
rated.  Its  earliest  open  manifestation  was  in  Toulouse,  in  1018  ;  at 
Orleans,  in  1023,  King  Robert  the  Pious  caused  numerous  sectaries 
to  expiate  their  heresy  at  the  stake,  where  their  unshrinking  zeal 
excited  general  wonder.  At  Cambrai  and  Liege  similar  measures  of 
repression  became  necessary  in  1025 ;  the  Emperor  Henry  III. 
endeavored  at  Goslar,  in  1052,  to  put  an  end  to  them  with  the 
gallows ;  and  traces  of  them  are  to  be  found  at  Agen  about  the  year 
1100 ;  at  Soissons  in  1114 ;  at  Toulouse  in  1118 ;  at  Cologne  in 
1146  ;  at  Perigord  in  1147  ;  in  England  in  1166,  until  we  can  trace 
their  connection  with  the  Albigenses,  whose  misfortunes  fill  so  black 
a  page  in  the  history  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Calling  themselves 
Cathari,  and  stigmatized  by  true  believers  under  various  opprobrious 
names,  of  which  the  commonest  was  Paterins,  their  doctrines  were 


208 


MILAN. 


those  of  the  ancient  Manichseans,  their  most  characteristic  tenets 
being  belief  in  the  dualistic  principle,  and  the  abhorrence  of  animal 
food  and  of  marriage.1  The  prevalence  of  these  dogmas  among  the 
Milanese  populace  furnishes  a  probable  explanation  of  much  that 
took  place  during  the  contest  between  Rome  and  the  married  priests. 

Eriberto  di  Arzago,  who  filled  the  archiepiscopal  chair  of  Milan 
from  1019  to  1045,  was  one  of  the  most  powerful  princes  of  Italy, 


1  I  think  that  there  is  too  much  con¬ 
current  testimony  to  this  efiect  to  admit 
a  reasonable  doubt  that  the  Albigenses 
were  Manichaeans.  I  may  return  to 
them  hereafter,  and  therefore  will  not 
discuss  the  point  here.  As  regards  the 
earlier  heretics,  however,  I  may  men¬ 
tion  the  following  contemporary  au¬ 
thorities  : — 

With  respect  to  those  of  Toulouse 
and  Orleans,  the  “  Fragmentum  His- 
toriae  Aquitaniae  ”  (Pithcei  Hist.  Franc. 
Script,  p.  82)  says:  “Eo  tempore 
decern  ex  canonicis  sanctae  crucis 
Aurelianis  probati  sunt  esse  Mani- 
chaei,  quos  rex  Bobertus  quum  nollent 
ad  Catholicam  converti  fidem,  igne  cre- 
mari  jussit.  Simili  modo  apud  Tholo- 
sam  inventi  sunt  Manichaei,  et  ipsi  igne 
cremati  sunt :  et  per  diversas  Occidentis 
partes  Manichaei  exorti  per  latibula  sese 
occultare  coeperunt” — and  their  errors 
are  thus  specified  in  the  “  Fragmentum 
Hist.  Franc.”  (Op.  cit.  p.  84)  “  Ii 
dicebant  non  posse  aliquem  in  bap- 
tismate  spiritum  sanctum  suscipere,  et 
post  criminale  peccatum  veniam  non 
promereri ;  impositionem  manuum  ni¬ 
hil  posse  conferre  ;  nuptias  spernehant ; 
episcopum  affirmabant  non  posse  ordi- 
nare,  &c.” 

In  the  Artesian  synod,  held  in  1025 
to  condemn  those  of  Cambrai,  the 
tenth  canon  is  directed  against  their 
hostility  to  marriage  (Labbei  et  Coleti 
XI.  1177-8). — See  also  the  prefatory 
letter  of  Gerard,  Bishop  of  Cambrai — 
“  Conjugatos  nequaquam  ad  regnum 
pertinere” — (Hartzheim  Concil.  Ger¬ 
man.  III.  68). 

Concerning  those  executed  at  Gos- 
lar  in  1052 — “  Ibique  quosdam  haere- 
ticos,  inter  alia  pravi  erroris  dogmata 
Manichoea  secta  omnis  esum  animalis 
exsecrantes,  consensu  cunctorum,  ne 
haeretica  scabies  latius  serpens  plures 
inficeret,  in  patibulis  suspendi  jussit.” 
— Herman.  Contract,  ann.  1052. 

About  1100  Badolphus  Ardens  de¬ 


scribes  the  Manichaeans  who  infested 
the  territory  of  Agen,  and  recapitulates 
their  doctrines  as  embracing  dualism, 
abhorrence  of  animal  food  and  of  mar¬ 
riage,  rejection  of  the  Old  Testament 
and  part  of  the  New,  disbelief  in  the 
Eucharist,  in  baptism  and  resurrection, 
&c. — “  Dicun  t  enim  tantum  flagitium 
esse  accedere  ad  uxorem,  quantum  ad 
matrem  vel  ad  filiam” — Badulf.  Ardent. 
T.  I.  P.  ii.  Homil.  19. 

The  council  of  Toulouse,  held  by 
Calixtus  II.  in  1119,  adopted  a  canon 
condemning  those  who  objected  to  the 
Eucharist,  priesthood,  and  legitimate 
marriage,  showing  that  Manichaeism 
was  unextinguished  in  Languedoc. — 
Udalr.  Bahenb.  Cod.  Lib.  n.  c.  303. 

In  1146  a  synod  at  Cologne  tried 
certain  heretics,  but  before  the  ex¬ 
amination  was  concluded  the  unfor¬ 
tunates  were  seized  by  the  rabble  and 
burned  “et  quod  magis  mirabile  est, 
ipsi  tormentum  ignis  non  solum  cum 
patientia,  sed  et  cum  laetitia  introierunt 
et  sustinuerunt.”  Their  Manichaeism 
is  manifested  by  their  tenets  concerning 
marriage — “  De  baptismo  nostro  non 
curant:  Nuptias  damnant.  ...  In 
cibis  suis  vetant  omne  genus  lactis,  et 
quod  inde  conficitur,  et  quidquid  ex 
coitu  procreatur” — Narratio  Everwini 
Praepositi  (Hartzheim.  III.  353-4). 
Cf.  Bernardi  Serna.  65,  66,  in  Cantica. 

The  accusations  so  freely  dissemi¬ 
nated  against  them  for  the  purpose  of 
stirring  up  popular  indignation — such 
as  that  in  their  conventicles,  after  re¬ 
ligious  exercises,  the  lights  were  extin¬ 
guished,  and  the  congregation  aban¬ 
doned  themselves  to  indiscriminate 
excesses — are,  of  course,  without  foun¬ 
dation.  It  is  instructive  to  observe 
that  precisely  the  same  scandals  were 
asserted  of  the  early  Christians  (Tertull. 
Apologet.  c.  vii.) — so  little  does  human 
nature  change  with  the  lapse  of  cen¬ 
turies. 


/ 


ELECTION  OF  GUIDO  DI  VALATE.  209 

$ 

and  though  unsuccessful  in  the  revolt  which  he  organized  in  1034 
against  the  Emperor  Conrad  the  Salic,  his  influence  was  scarcely 
diminished  after  his  return  from  the  expulsion  which  punished  his 
rebellion.1  At  the  time  of  his  death,  Milan  was  passing  through  one 
of  its  accustomed  civil  dissensions.  The  Motta,  or  body  of  burgesses, 
had  quarrelled  with  the  nobles  and  archbishop,  and,  under  the  leader¬ 
ship  of  an  apostate  noble  named  Lanzo,  had  expelled  them  from  the 
city — an  ejection  which  was  followed  by  an  unsuccessful  siege  of 
three  years.  At  length,  in  1044,  Lanzo  obtained  promise  of  armed 
assistance  from  Henry  III.,  wdiich  reduced  the  nobles  to  subjection, 
and  they  returned  in  peace.  Eriberto  died  the  following  year,  and 
the  election  of  his  successor  caused  great  excitement.  Erlembaldo, 
the  popular  chief  (dominus  populi),  called  the  citizens  together  to 
nominate  candidates,  and  induced  them  to  select  four.  One  of  these 
was  Landolfo  Cotta,  a  notary  of  the  sacred  palace,  who  was  brother 
to  Erlembaldo ;  another  w^as  Anselmo  di  Badagio,  Cardinal  of  the 
Milanese  church,  subsequently  Bishop  of  Lucca,  and  finally,  as  we 
have  seen,  pope,  under  the  name  of  Alexander  II. ;  the  third  was 
Arialdo,  of  the  family  of  the  capitanei  of  Carinate ;  and  the  fourth 
was  Otho,  another  Milanese  cardinal.  These  four  were  sent  to  the 
Emperor,  for  him  to  make  his  selection  ;  but  the  faction  of  the  nobles 
despatched  a  rival  in  the  person  of  Guido  di  Valate,  w'ho  already 
held  the  appointment  of  secretary  from  the  emperor,  and  who  had 
recommended  himself  by  zealous  services,  which  now  claimed  their 
reward.  Henry  gave  the  coveted  dignity  to  Guido,  to  the  great 
surprise  and  indignation  of  the  popular  nominees.  Their  expostula¬ 
tions  were  unavailing,  and  both  parties  returned — Guido  to  assume 
an  office  harassed  by  the  opposition  of  the  people  on  whom  he  had 
been  forced,  and  the  disappointed  candidates  to  brood  over  the 
wrongs  which  had  deprived  them  of  the  splendid  prize.2  Me  shall 
see  how  thoroughly  three  of  those  candidates  avenged  themselves. 

It  is  observable  from  this  transaction  that  Milan  was  completely 
independent  of  Rome.  The  sovereignty  of  the  distant  emperor, 


1  It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  more 
than  refer  to  the  assertion  of  mediaeval 
Milanese  chroniclers  that  Eriberto  mar¬ 
ried  a  noble  lady  named  Useria.  Puri- 
celli  (Muratori  Script.  Rer.  Ital.  V. 
122-3)  has  sufficiently  demonstrated 
its  improbability.  He  does  not,  how¬ 
ever,  allude  to  the  argument  derivable 


from  the  fact  that  Eriberto ’s  name  is 
signed  to  the  proceedings  of  the  council 
of  Pavia  in  1022,  where  priestly  mar¬ 
riage  was  so  severely  condemned. 

2  G-ualvaneo  Flamma,  Chron.  Mag. 
c.  763. — Landulph.  Senior.  Mediolan. 
Hist.  Lib.  III.  c.  2. 


14 


210 


MILAN. 


absorbed  in  the  dissensions  of  Germany,  could  press  but  lightly  on 
the  powerful  and  turbulent  city.  Rome  was  not  even  thought  of  in 
creating  the  archbishop,  whose  spiritual  and  temporal  power  were 
granted  by  the  imperial  investiture.  But  when,  soon  after,  the 
German  popes  had  rescued  the  papacy  from  the  contempt  into  which 
it  had  fallen,  its  domination  over  Milan  became  a  necessary  step  in 
its  progress  to  universal  supremacy,  and  lent  additional  vigor  to  the 
desires  of  the  reformers  to  restore  the  forgotten  discipline  of  the 
church  in  a  city  so  influential. 

Marriage,  at  this  time,  was  a  universal  privilege  of  the  Milanese 
clergy.  If  we  may  believe  the  testimony  of  one  who  was  almost  a 
contemporary,  the  candidate  for  holy  orders  was  strictly  examined  as 
to  his  learning  and  morals.  These  being  satisfactory,  he  was,  if 
unmarried,  asked  if  he  had  strength  to  remain  so,  and  if  he  replied 
in  the  negative,  he  could  forthwith  betroth  himself  and  marry  with 
the  ordinary  legal  and  religious  ceremonies.  Second  marriages  were 
not  allowed,  and  the  Levitical  law  as  to  the  virginity  of  the  bride 
■was  strictly  observed.  Those  who  remained  single  were  objects  of 
suspicion,  while  those  wTho  performed  their  sacred  functions  duly, 
and  brought  up  their  families  in  the  fear  of  God,  were  respected 
and  obeyed  by  their  flocks  as  pastors  should  be,  and  were  eligible  to 
the  episcopate.  Concubinage  wTas  regarded  as  a  heinous  offence,  and 
those  guilty  of  it  were  debarred  from  all  promotion1 — in  this  reversing 


1  Landulf.  Senior.  L.  n.  c.  35.  j 

The  writer  was  a  partisan  of  the 
married  clergy  ;  but  his  description  is 
confirmed  by  the  testimony  which 
Damiani  bears  (ante,  p.  203)  to  the 
good  character  of  the  married  clergy 
of  Savoy.  Still,  there  may  be  some 
truth  in  the  counter  statement  of  an 
opponent,  S.  Andrea  of  Vallombrosa, 
a  disciple  of  S.  Arialdo — “  Nam  alii 
cum  canibus  et  accipitribus  hue 
illueque  pervagantes,  suum  venationi 
lubricse  famulatum  tradebant ;  alii 
vero  tabernarii  et  nequam  villici,  alii 
impii  usurarii  existebant ;  cuncti  fere 
aut  cum  publicis  uxoribus  sive  seortis, 
suam  ignominiose  ducebant  vitam  .  .  . 
Universi  sic  sub  simoniaca  lueresi 
tenebantur  impliciti.” — Vit.  S.  Ari- 
aldi  c.  i.  No.  7. 

The  Milanese  defended  their  position 
not  only  by  Scripture  texts,  but  also  by 


a  decision  which  they  affirmed  was 
rendered  by  St.  Ambrose,  to  whom  the 
question  of  the  permissibility  of  sacer¬ 
dotal  marriage  had  been  referred  bv  the 
pope  and  bishops.  Of  course  the  story 
was  without  foundation,  but  singularly 
enough,  the  Milanese  clung  to  it  long 
after  the  subject  had  ceased  to  be  open 
to  discussion.  Puricelli  has  investi¬ 
gated  the  matter  with  his  usual  con¬ 
scientious  industry,  and  shows  the  repe- 
i  tition  of  the  legend  not  only  by  Datius 
and  Landulfus  Senior  in  the  eleventh 
century,  but  by  Gualvaneo  Flamma  in 
the  thirteenth,  by  the  author  of  the 
Flos  Florum,  by  Pietro  Agario  and  by 
Bernardino  Corio  in  the  fifteenth,  and 
by  Tristano  Calco  in  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury — the  two  latter  falling  in  conse¬ 
quence  under  the  revision  of  the  Index. 
(Script.  Her.  Ital.  V.  122-3.) 


COMMENCEMENT  OF  THE  TROUBLES. 


211 


the  estimate  placed  upon  the  respective  infractions  of  discipline  by 
the  Roman  church. 


The  see  of  Lucca  consoled  Anselmo  di  Badagio  for  the  failure  of 
his  aspirations  towards  the  archiepiscopate,  and  the  other  disappointed 
candidates  for  a  while  cherished  their  mortification  in  silence.  Lan- 
dolfo  and  Arialdo  were  inclined  to  asceticism,  and  a  visit  which 
Anselmo  paid  to  Milan  stimulated  them  to  undertake  a  reform  which 
could  not  but  prove  a  source  of  endless  trouble  to  their  successful 
competitor  Guido.  Leaders  of  the  people,  and  masters  of  the  art  of 
inflaming  popular  passion,  they  caused  assemblies  to  be  held  in  which 
they  inveighed  in  the  strongest  terms  against  the  irregularities  of  the 
clergy,  whose  sacraments  they  stigmatized  as  the  foulest  corruption, 
whose  churches  they  denounced  as  dens  of  prostitution,  and  wdiose 
property  they  assumed  to  be  legitimate  prey  for  the  spoiler.  Guido 
in  vain  endeavored  to  repress  the  agitation  thus  produced,  argued  in 
favor  of  the  married  clergy,  and  was  sustained  by  the  party  of  the 
nobles.  In  a  city  like  Milan,  it  was  not  difficult  to  excite  a  tumult. 
Besides  the  influence  of  the  perennial  factions,  ever  eager  to  tear 
each  other’s  throats,  the  populace  were  ready  to  yield  to  the  eloquence 
of  the  bold  reformers.  The  Manichtnan  heresy  had  taken  deep  root 
among  the  masses,  who,  afraid  to  declare  their  damnable  doctrines 
openly,  were  rejoiced  in  any  way  to  undermine  the  authority  of  the 
priesthood,  and  whose  viewTs  were  in  accordance  with  those  now 
broached  on  the  subject  of  marriage.1  While  these  motives  would 
urge  forward  the  serious  portion  of  the  citizens,  the  unthinking 
rabble  would  naturally  be  prompt  to  embrace  any  cause  which 
promised  a  prospect  of  disturbance  and  plunder.  Party  lines  were 
quickly  drawn,  and  if  the  reformers  were  able  to  revive  a  forgotten 
scandal  by  stigmatizing  their  opponents  as  Nicolites,  the  party  of  the 
clergy  and  the  nobles  had  their  revenge.  The  meetings  of  Landolfo 
and  Arialdo  were  held  in  a  spot  called  Pataria,  whence  they  soon 


1  Milan  long  retained  its  bad  pre¬ 
eminence  as  a  nest  of  heresy.  When 
Frederic  II.,  in  1236,  delayed  his  pro¬ 
mised  crusade  to  subdue  the  rebellious 
Milanese,  his  excuse  to  the  pope  was 
that  he  ought  not  to  leave  behind  him 
unbelievers  worse  than  those  whom  he 
would  seek  across  the  seas.  “  Cum 
.  .  .  jam  zizania  segetes  incipiant  suf- 
focare  per  civitates  Italicas,  praecipue 
Mediolanensium,  transire  ad  Saracenos 


hostiliter  expugnandos,  et  illos  incor- 
rectos  pertransire,  esset  vulnus  infixo 
ferro  fomentis  superficialibus  delinire, 
et  cicatricem  deformam  non  medelam 
procurare,”  and  Matthew  Paris  calls 
Milan  “omnium  haereticorum,  Pate- 
rinorum,  Luciferanorum,  Publicano- 
rum,  Albisrensium,  Usurariorum  re- 
fugium  ac  receptaculum.  ” — Hist.  Angl. 
ann.  1236. 


212 


MILAN. 


became  known  as  Paterins — a  term  which  for  centuries  continued  to 
be  of  fearful  import,  as  synonymous  with  Manichaeans.1 

Matters  could  not  long  remain  in  this  condition.  During  an 
altercation  in  the  church  of  San  Celso,  a  hot-headed  priest  assaulted 
Arialdo,  whom  Landolfo  extricated  from  the  crowd  at  considerable 
personal  risk.  Thereupon  the  reformers  called  the  people  together 
in  the  theatre ;  inflammatory  addresses  speedily  wrought  up  the 
popular  passions  to  ungovernable  fury;  the  priests  were  turned  out 
of  the  churches,  their  houses  sacked,  their  persons  maltreated,  and 
they  were  finally  obliged  to  purchase  a  suspension  of  oppression  by 
subscribing  a  paper  binding  themselves  to  chastity.  The  nobles,  far 
from  being  able  to  protect  the  clergy,  finding  themselves  also  in 
danger,  sought  safety  in  flight;  while  the  rabble,  having  exhausted 
the  support  derivable  from  intramural  plunder,  spread  over  the 
country  and  repeated  in  the  villages  the  devastations  of  priestly 
property  which  they  had  committed  in  Milan.2 

The  suffering  clergy  applied  for  relief  to  the  bishops  of  the 
province,  and  finding  none,  at  length  appealed  to  Rome  itself. 
Stephen  IX.,  who  then  filled  the  papal  chair,  authorized  the  arch¬ 
bishop  to  hold  a  synod  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace.  It  met, 
in  the  early  part  of  1058,  at  Fontaneto,  near  Novara.  The  prelates 
were  unanimous  in  sustaining  their  clergy,  and  the  reformers 
Landolfo  and  Arialdo  were  excommunicated  without  a  dissentient 
voice.  They  disregarded  the  interdict,  however,  redoubled  their 
efforts  with  the  people,  whom  they  bound  by  a  solemn  oath  to 
adhere  to  the  sacred  cause,  and  even  forced  the  priests  to  join  in  the 
compact.  Arialdo  then  proceeded  to  Rome,  where  he  developed  in 
full  the  objects  of  the  movement,  and  pointed  out  that  it  would  not 
only  result  in  restoring  purity  and  discipline,  but  might  also  be  used 
to  break  dowrn  the  dangerous  independence  of  the  Ambrosian  church 
and  reduce  it  to  the  subjection  which  it  owed  and  refused  to  the 


1  Arnulf.  Gest.  Archiep.  Mediolan. 
Lib.  ill.  c.  9. — Landulf.  Sen.  Lib.  ill. 
c.  10. 

Benzo,  the  uncompromising  im¬ 
perialist,  always  alludes  to  the  papal 
party  when  he  speaks  of  the  Patarini 
— that  term  not  having  yet  assumed 
the  significance  which  it  subsequently 
obtained.  He  accuses  Anselmo  di 
Badagio  of  being  the  author  of  the  | 
troubles — “  primitus  Patariam  invenit, 


arcanum  domini  sui  archiepiscopi  cui 
juraverat  inimicis  aperuit.  Abusus  est 
etiam  quadam  monacha,  cum  Landul- 
fino  suo  proprio  consobrino.” — Com¬ 
ment.  de  Beb.  Henric.  IV.  Lib.  vn.  c. 
2. — The  latter  accusation  can  no  doubt 
be  set  down  as  one  of  the  baseless 
scandals  so  freely  cast  from  one  party 
to  the  other  in  those  turbulent  times. 

2  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  10. — Landulf. 
Sen.  Lib.  in.  c.  9. 


DAMIANI  IX  MILAN. 


213 


Apostolic  see.  The  arguments  were  convincing,  the  excommunica¬ 
tion  was  removed,  and  Arialdo  returned  to  his  work  with  zeal  more 
fiery  than  ever.1 

Meanwhile  the  nobles  had  taken  heart  and  offered  armed  resistance 
to  the  Patarian  faction,  resulting  in  incessant  fights  and  increasing 
bloodshed.  Nicholas  II.,  who  by  this  time  had  succeeded  Stephen 
IX.,  sent  Plildebrand  and  Anselmo  di  Badagio  on  a  mission  to 
Milan,  with  instructions  to  allay  the  passions  which  led  to  such 
deplorable  results,  and,  while  endeavoring  to  uphold  the  rules  of 
discipline,  to  pacify  if  possible  the  people,  and  to  arrange  such  a  basis 
of  reconciliation  as  might  restore  peace  to  the  distracted  church. 
The  milder  Anselmo  might  perhaps  have  succeeded  in  this  errand  of 
charity,  but  the  unbending  Hildebrand  was  not  likely  to  listen  to 
aught  but  unconditional  subjection  to  the  canons  and  to  Rome.  The 
quarrel  therefore  waxed  fiercer  and  deadlier;  the  turmoil  became 
more  inextricable  as  daily  combats  embittered  both  parties,  and  the 
missionaries  departed,  leaving  Guido  with  scarcely  a  shadow  of 
authority  over  his  rebellious  city,  and  the  seeds  of  discord  more 
widely  scattered  and  more  deeply  planted  than  ever.2 

Again,  in  1059,  a  papal  legation  was  sent  with  full  authority 
to  force  the  recalcitrant  clergy  to  submission.  Anselmo  again 
returned  to  his  native  city,  accompanied  this  time  by  Peter  Damiani. 
Their  presence  and  their  pretensions  caused  a  fearful  tumult,  in  which 
Damiani  and  Landolfo  were  in  deadly  peril.3  An  assembly  was  at 
length  held,  where  the  legates  asserted  the  papal  preeminence  by 
taking  the  place  of  honor,  to  the  general  indignation  of  the  Milanese, 
who  did  not  relish  the  degradation  of  their  archbishop  before  the 
representatives  of  a  foreign  prelate.  The  question  in  debate  hinged 
upon  the  authority  of  Rome,  which  was  stoutly  denied  by  the 
Lombards.4  Peter,  in  a  long  oration,  showed  that  Rome  had  christian¬ 
ized  the  rest  of  Western  Europe,  and  that  St.  Ambrose  himself  had 
invoked  the  papal  power  as  superior  to  his  own.  The  pride  of  the 


1  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  11. 

2  Landulf.  Sen.  Lib.  in.  c.  13. 

3  “Quod  Mediolanensis  ci vitas  tunc 
in  seditionem  versa,  repentinum  utique 
nostrum  minabatur  interitum.” — The 
peril  must  have  been  serious,  for  even 

Landolfo,  whose  nerves  were  seasoned 
by  constant  civic  strife,  made  a  vow  to 
become  a  monk  if  he  should  escape — 


his  delay  in  fulfilling  which,  after  the 
danger  was  past,  called  foith  the  urgent 
remonstrances  of  Damiani. — Damiani 
Opusc.  xlii.  cap.  1. 

4  Their  defence  was  “non  debere 
Ambrosianam  ecclesiam  Romanis  legi- 
bus  subjacere,  nullumque  judicandi  vel 
disponendi  jus  Romano  pontifici  in  ilia 
sede  competere. — Damiani  Opusc.  v. 


214 


MILAN. 


Ambrosian  church  gave  way,  and  the  supremacy  of  St.  Peter  was 
finally  acknowledged.  This  granted,  the  rest  followed  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  the  heretical  errors  of  simony  and  marriage  had  to  be 
abandoned.  Peter  thought  himself  merciful  in  his  triumph;  where 
all  alike  were  guilty,  punishment  for  the  past  became  impossible,  and 
he  restricted  himself  to  provisions  for  the  future.  The  archbishop 
and  his  clergy  signed  a  paper  expressing  their  contrition  in  the  most 
humiliating  terms,  and  binding  themselves  and  their  successors,  under 
penalty  of  eternal  damnation,  to  render  simony  thereafter  unknown. 
As  regards  the  Nicolitan  heresy,  a  significant  caution  was  observed, 
for  its  extirpation  was  only  promised  in  as  far  as  it  should  be  found 
possible;1  and  when  Arnolfo,  the  nephew  of  Guido,  swore  for  his 
uncle  that  in  future  monks  should  be  the  only  persons  ordained 
without  a  preliminary  oath  that  no  money  had  been  paid  or  received, 
it  is  observable  that  the  maintenance  of  chastity  was  discreetly 
passed  over.  Then  the  archbishop  and  his  clergy  swore,  in  the 
hands  of  Damiani  at  the  altar,  their  faithful  observance  of  the  pledge 
to  destroy  the  simoniacal  and  Nicolitan  heresies,  under  penalties  the 
most  tremendous;  and  Guido  prostrating  himself  on  the  ground, 
humbly  deplored  his  negligence  in  the  past,  imposed  on  himself  a 
penitence  of  a  hundred  years  (redeemable  at  a  certain  sum  per 
annum),  and  vowed  a  pilgrimage  to  Santiago  de  Compostella  to  atone 
for  his  sin.  Not  content  with  this,  Damiani  mounted  the  prulpit  and 
made  both  priests  and  people  take  an  oath  to  extirpate  both  heresies ; 
and  the  clergy,  before  being  reconciled  to  the  church  and  restored  to 
the  positions  which  they  had  forfeited  by  their  contumacy,  were 
forced  individually  under  oath  to  anathematize  all  heresies,  and 
especially  those  of  simony  and  marriage.  A  penance  was  imposed 
on  every  one  involved  in  simony — no  allusion  being  made  to  those 
who  were  married ;  some,  who  were  manifestly  unfit  for  their  sacred 
duties,  were  suspended,  and  the  legates  returned,  after  triumphantly 
accomplishing  the  objects  of  their  mission.2 


1  Nicolaitarum  quoque  hneresim  ni- 
hilominus  condemnamus,  et  non  modo 
presbyteros  sed  et  diaconos  et  subdia- 
conos  ab  uxorum  et  concubinarurn  f;edo 
consortio,  nostris  studiis,  in  quantum 
nobis  possibilitas  fuerit,  sub  eodem  quo 
supra  testimonio  arcendos  esse  promit- 
timus. — Damiani  Opusc.  v. 


2  Damiani  op.  cit. — Damiani’s  ac¬ 
count  is  addressed  to  the  pope,  who,  he 
seems  to  think,  may  be  dissatisfied  with 
the  lenity  which  permitted  heretics  to 
return  to  the  church  on  such  easy  terms, 
and  he  is  at  some  pains  to  justify  him¬ 
self  for  his  mildness. 


RENEWAL  OF  CIVIL  WAR. 


215 


If  Damiani  fancied  that  argumentative  subtlety  and  paper  promises, 
even  though  solemnly  given  in  the  name  of  God  and  all  his  saints, 
were  to  settle  a  question  involving  the  fiercest  passions  of  men,  the 
cloistered  saint  knew  little  of  human  nature.  The  pride  of  the 
Milanese  was  deeply  wounded  by  a  subjection  to  Rome,  unknown  for 
many  generations,  and  ill  endured  by  men  who  gloried  in  the  ancient 
dignity  of  the  Ambrosian  church.  When,  therefore,  in  1061,  their 
townsman,  Anselmo  di  Badagio,  was  elevated  from  the  episcopate  of 
Lucca  to  that  of  the  Holy  See,  Milan,  in  common  with  the  rest 
of  Lombardy,  eagerly  embraced  the  cause  of  the  anti-pope  Cadalus. 
One  of  Anselmo’s  earliest  acts  as  pope  w’as  to  address  a  letter  to  the 
Milanese,  affectionately  exhorting  them  to  amendment,  and  expressing 
a  hope  that  his  pontificate  was  to  witness  the  extinction  of  the 
heresies  which  had  distracted  and  degraded  the  church.1  He  could 
scarcely  have  entertained  the  confidence  which  he  expressed,  for 
though  Landolfo  and  Arialdo  endeavored,  with  unabated  zeal,  to 
enforce  the  canons,  the  Nicolitan  faction,  regardless  of  the  pledges 
given  to  Damiani,  maintained  the  contest  with  equal  stubbornness. 
Landolfo,  on  a  mission  to  Rome,  was  attacked  at  Piacenza,  wounded, 
and  forced  to  return.  Soon  after  this  he  was  prostrated  by  a  pulmo¬ 
nary  affection,  lost  his  voice,  and  died  after  a  lingering  illness  of  two 
years.2  The  Paterins,  thus  deprived  of  their  leader,  found  another 
in  the  person  of  his  brother,  Erlembaldo,  just  then  returned  from  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  Holy  Land.  Gifted  with  every  knightly  accom¬ 
plishment,  valiant  in  wTar,  sagacious  in  council,  of  a  commanding 
presence,  and  endowed  with  eloquence  to  sway  the  passions  of  the 
multitude,  he  wras  the  impersonation  of  a  popular  leader;  while,  in 
the  cause  to  which  he  was  now  called,  his  deep  religious  convictions 
lent  an  attraction  which  was  heightened  by  an  unpardonable  personal 
wrong — for,  early  in  life,  he  had  been  betrothed  to  a  young  girl,  who 
fell  under  the  seductive  wiles  of  an  unprincipled  priest.  Yet 
Erlembaldo  did  not  embark  in  civil  strife  without  a  hesitation  which 
reflects  honor  on  his  character.  He  refused,  at  first,  but  was 
persuaded  to  seek  counsel  of  the  pope.  Arialdo  accompanied  him  to 
Rome,  and  urged  Alexander  to  adopt  him  as  military  leader  in  the 
war  against  sacerdotal  marriage.  Alexander,  too,  shrank  from 
the  responsibility  of  authorizing  war  in  such  a  cause,  but  Arialdo 


1  Alexand.  II.  Epist.  1. 

2  His  followers  claimed  for  him  the 
honors  of  martyrdom.  He  was  reve¬ 


renced  accordingly,  and  Muratori 
^ravelv  asserts  that  the  evidence  in  his 

<T>  %) 

favor  is  indubitable. 


216 


MILAN. 


sought  the  assistance  of  Hildebrand,  and  the  scruples  of  the  pope 
were  removed  by  the  prospect  of  asserting  the  authority  of  Rome. 
When  Erlembaldo  heard  the  commands  of  the  Vicegerent  of  God, 
and  received  a  sacred  banner  to  be  borne  through  the  expected 
battles,  he  could  no  longer  doubt  as  to  his  duty.  He  accepted  the 
mission,  and  to  it  he  devoted  his  life.1 

Returning  to  Milan  with  this  sanction,  the  zeal  and  military 
experience  of  Erlembaldo  soon  made  themselves  felt.  He  enrolled 
secretly  all  the  young  men  whom  persuasion,  threats,  or  promises 
could  induce  to  follow  his  standard,  and  thus  supported  by  an  organ¬ 
ized  body,  he  endeavored  to  enforce  the  decretals  inhibiting  simony 
and  marriage.  All  recalcitrant  priests  presuming  to  officiate  were 
torn  from  the  altars.  The  riots,  which  seem  to  have  ceased  for  a 
time,  became,  with  varying  fortune,  more  numerous  and  alarming 
than  ever,  and  the  persecution  of  the  clergy  was  greatly  intensified. 
Guido,  at  length,  after  vainly  endeavoring  to  uphold  and  protect  the 
sacerdotal  body,  was  driven  from  the  city,  and  the  popular  reformers 
seemed  at  last  to  have  carried  their  point,  after  a  civil  war  which 
had  now  lasted,  with  short  intervals,  for  nearly  ten  years.2 

As  though  to  confirm  the  victory,  Arialdo,  in  1066,  at  a  council 
held  in  Rome,  procured  the  excommunication  of  his  archbishop, 
Guido,  with  which  he  returned  triumphantly  to  Milan.  Some 
popular  revolution  among  the  factions,  however,  had  brought  Guido 
back  to  the  city,  where  he  maintained  a  precarious  position.  Dis¬ 
regarding  the  excommunication,  he  resolved  to  officiate  in  the  solemn 
services  of  Pentecost  (June  4th,  1066),  and,  braving  all  opposition, 
he  appeared  at  the  altar.  Excited  to  fury  at  this  unexpected  con¬ 
tumacy,  the  popular  party,  led  on  by  Erlembaldo  and  Arialdo, 
attacked  him  in  the  church ;  his  followers  rallied  in  his  defence,  but, 
after  a  stubborn  fight,  were  forced  to  leave  him  in  the  hands  of  his 
enemies,  by  whom  he  was  beaten  nearly  to  death.  Shocked  by  this 


1  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  13,  14. — Lan- 
dolf.  Sen.  Lib.  in.  c.  13,  14. 

To  this  period  may  probably  be  at¬ 
tributed  two  epistles  of  Alexander  II. 
(Epistt.  93,  94)  to  the  clergy  and  people 
of  Milan,  informing  both  parties  that  a 
Roman  synod  had  recently  prohibited 
incontinent  priests  from  officiating,  and 
had  ordered  the  people  not  to  attend  at 
their  ministrations.  He  adds  that  those 
who  abandon  their  functions  to  cleave 


to  their  wives,  must  be  forced  also  to 
give  up  their  benefices. 

2  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  15.  —  Landulf. 
Sen.  Lib.  in.  c.  15. — Arnulfus  alludes 
to  a  dispute  concerning  the  litany, 
which  complicated  the  quarrel.  The 
troubles  even  invaded  the  monasteries, 
for  Erlembaldo  procured  the  forcible 
ejection  of  sundry  abbots  appointed  by 
Guido. 


THE  TROUBLES  CONTINUE. 


217 


outrage,  many  of  the  citizens  abandoned  the  party  of  the  reformers, 
and  the  nobles,  taking  advantage  of  the  revulsion  of  feeling,  again 
had  the  ascendency.  Arialdo  was  obliged  to  fly  for  his  life,  and 
endeavored  to  conceal  himself,  travelling  only  by  night.  The 
avengers  were  close  upon  his  track,  however ;  he  was  betrayed  by  a 
priest,  and  the  satellites  of  Guido  carried  him  to  an  island  in  Lago 
Maggiore,  where  (June  27th,  1066)  they  put  him  to  death,  with  all 
the  refinement  of  cruelty.  A  series  of  miracles  prevented  the 
attempted  concealment  of  the  martyred  corpse,  and  ten  months  later 
Erlembaldo  recovered  it,  fresh  and  untouched  by  corruption.  Carried 
to  Milan,  it  was  interred  with  stately  pomp  in  the  monastery  of  San 
Celso,  where  the  miracles  wrought  at  his  tomb  proclaimed  the  sanctity 
of  him  who  had  died  for  the  faith,  and  ere  long  his  canonization 
formally  enrolled  St.  Arialdo  among  the  saints  of  Heaven.1 

Erlembaldo  for  a  while  remained  quiet,  but  in  secret  he  recon¬ 
structed  his  party,  and,  undaunted  by  the  fate  of  his  associate,  he 
suddenly  renewed  the  civil  strife.  Successful  at  first,  he  forced  the 
clergy  to  bind  themselves  by  fresh  oaths,  and  expelled  Guido  again 
from  the  city ;  but  the  clerical  party  recovered  its  strength,  and  the 
war  was  carried  on  with  varying  fortune,  until,  in  1067,  Alexander 
II.  despatched  another  legation  with  orders  to  harmonize,  if  possible, 
the  endless  strife.  Cardinals  Mainardo  and  Minuto  appear  to  have 
been  sincerely  desirous  of  reconciling  the  angry  factions.  They  pro¬ 
claimed  an  amnesty  and  promulgated  a  constitution  which  protected 
the  clergy  from  abuse  and  persecution,  and  though  they  decreed  sus¬ 
pension  for  married  and  concubinary  priests,  they  required  that  none 
should  be  punished  on  suspicion,  and  laid  down  such  regulations  for 
trial  as  gave  great  prospect  of  immunity.2  There  must  have  been 
pressing  necessity  for  some  such  regulations,  if  we  may  believe  the 
assertion  of  Landolfo  that  when  Erlembaldo  found  his  funds  running 
low  he  appointed  thirty  judges  to  examine  all  ecclesiastics  in  holy 


1  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  18. — Landulf. 
Lib.  hi.  c.  29.  In  1090  the  remains 
of  St.  Arialdo  were  translated  by  Arch¬ 
bishop  Anselmo  IV.  to  the  church  of 
St.  Denis,  and  Muratori  quotes  from 
Alciati  a  curious  statement  to  the  effect 
that  in  1508  Louis  XII.  removed  them 
to  Paris  in  mistake  for  the  relics  of  St. 
Denis  the  Areopagite,  the  Parisians  in 
his  time  still  venerating  them  as  those 
of  the  latter  saint. 

About  the  time  of  Arialdo ’s  martyr¬ 


dom,  Cremona  must  have  been  won 
over  to  the  cause  of  the  reformers,  for 
in  1066  we  find  Alexander  II.  address¬ 
ing  the  “  religiosis  clericis  et  fidelibus 
laicis  ”  of  that  city,  thanking  God  that 
they  had  been  moved  to  extirpate  the 
simoniacal  and  Nicolitan  heresies,  and 
commanding  that  in  future  all  those  in 
orders  who  contaminated  themselves 
with  women  should  be  degraded. — 
Alex.  II.  Epist.  36. 

2  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  18,  19. 


218 


MILAN. 


orders.  Those  who  could  not  procure  twelve  conjurators  to  swear 
with  them  on  the  Gospels  as  to  their  immaculate  purity  since  ordi¬ 
nation,  had  all  their  property  confiscated.  At  the  same  time  the 
rabble  used  to  prowl  around  at  night  and  throw  female  ornaments 
and  articles  of  apparel  into  priests’  houses ;  then,  breaking  open  the 
doors,  they  would  proclaim  the  criminality  of  the  inmates,  and 
plunder  everything  that  they  could  lay  their  hands  on.1 

Moderate  men  of  both  parties,  wearied  with  the  unceasing  strife, 
eagerly  hailed  the  accommodation  proposed  by  the  papal  legates, 
and  rejoiced  at  the  prospect  of  peace.  Erlembaldo,  however,  was 
dissatisfied,  and,  visiting  Rome,  soon  aroused  a  fresh  cause  of 
quarrel.  At  the  suggestion  of  Hildebrand  he  started  the  portentous 
question  of  investitures,  and  on  his  return  he  endeavored  to  force 
both  clergy  and  laity  to  take  an  oath  that  in  future  their  archbishops 
should  apply  to  the  pope,  and  not  to  the  emperor,  for  confirmation — 
thus  securing  a  chief  devoted  to  the  cause  of  reform.  Guido  sought 
to  anticipate  this  movement,  and,  in  1069,  old  and  wearied  with  the 
unending  contention,  he  resigned  his  archbishopric  to  the  subdeacon 
Gotefrido,  who  had  long  been  his  principal  adviser.  The  latter  pro¬ 
cured  his  confirmation  from  Henry  IV.,  but  the  Milanese,  defrauded 
of  their  electoral  privileges,  refused  to  acknowledge  him.  Erlem¬ 
baldo  was  not  slow  to  take  advantage  of  the  popular  feeling ;  a 
tumult  was  readily  excited,  and  Gotefrido  was  glad  to  escape  at  night 
from  the  rebellious  city.  Guido  added  fresh  confusion  by  asserting 
that  he  had  been  deceived  by  Gotefrido,  and  by  endeavoring  to  re¬ 
sume  his  see.  To  this  end  he  made  a  treaty  with  Erlembaldo,  but 
that  crafty  chieftain,  obtaining  possession  of  his  person,  imprisoned 
him  in  the  monastery  of  San  Celso,  and  then  proceeded  to  besiege 
Gotefrido  in  Castiglione.  The  new  archbishop  defended  himself 
bravely,  until,  in  1071,  Erlembaldo  was  forced  to  abandon  the 
enterprise.2 

Meanwhile  another  aspirant,  Azzo,  installed  by  Erlembaldo,  fared 
no  better  than  his  rivals.  The  people,  unbidden  guests,  rushed  in  to 
his  inaugural  banquet,  unearthed  him  in  the  corner  where  he  had 
hidden  himself,  dragged  him  by  the  heels  into  the  street,  and,  placing 
him  in  a  pulpit,  forced  him  to  swear  that  he  would  make  no  further 
pretensions  to  the  see  ;  while  the  papal  legate,  who  had  presided 

1  Landulf.  Sen.  Lib.  ill.  c.  20. 

2  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  10,  20,  21,  22,  23. — Landulf.  Sen.  Lib.  III.  c.  28. 


THREE  RIVAL  ARCHBISHOPS. 


219 


over  the  solemnities,  was  glad  to  escape  with  his  life.  Azzo,  however, 
was  recognized  by  Rome ;  he  was  released  from  the  obligation  of  his 
oath,  and  money  was  furnished  to  enable  him  to  maintain  his  quarrel. 
On  the  other  hand,  Henry  IV.  sent  assistance  to  Gotefrido,  which 
enabled  him  to  carry  on  the  campaign  with  some  vigor ;  but  he  was 
unable  to  obtain  a  foothold  in  Milan.  Azzo  fled  to  Rome,  and  the 
city  remained  without  an  archbishop  and  under  an  interdict  launched 
in  1074  by  Hildebrand,  who,  in  April,  1073,  had  succeeded  to 
Alexander  II.1 

The  Milanese  were  disposed  to  disregard  the  interdict,  while 
Erlembaldo,  who  now  held  undisputed  command  of  the  city — and, 
indeed,  of  almost  all  Lombardy — used  every  effort  to  enforce  respect 
for  it.  At  length,  at  Easter,  1075,  he  resolutely  prevented  the 
solemnization  of  the  sacred  rites,  and  cast  out  the  holy  chrism  which 
the  priests  had  persisted  in  preparing.  This  roused  the  populace  to 
resistance ;  both  parties  flew  to  arms,  and,  at  the  very  commence¬ 
ment  of  the  fray,  Erlembaldo  fell  mortally  wounded  under  the  shade 
of  the  papal  banner,  which  was  still  the  emblem  of  his  cause,  and  in 
virtue  of  which  he  was  canonized  as  a  saintly  martyr  to  the  faith. 
The  Milanese,  sinking  all  past  animosities,  united  in  promptly 
sending  an  embassy  to  Henry  IV.  to  congratulate  him  on  the  death 
of  the  common  enemy,  and  to  request  the  appointment  of  another 
archbishop.  To  this  he  responded  by  nominating  Tedaldo,  who  was 
duly  consecrated,  notwithstanding  the  pretensions  of  his  competitors, 
Gotefrido  and  Azzo.  Tedaldo  was  the  leader  of  the  disaffected 
bishops  who,  at  the  synod  of  Pavia,  in  1076,  excommunicated  Pope 
Gregory  himself ;  and  though,  after  the  interview  at  Canosa,  in 
1077,  the  Lombards,  disgusted  with  Henry’s  voluntary  humiliation 
before  that  papal  power  which  they  had  learned  to  despise,  aban¬ 
doned  the  imperialists  for  a  time,  yet  Tedaldo  kept  his  seat  until  his 
death  in  1085,  notwithstanding  the  repeated  excommunications 
launched  against  him  by  Gregory.2 

In  the  later  years  of  this  long  and  bloody  controversy,  it  is  evident 
that  the  political  element  greatly  complicated  the  religious  ground  of 


1  Arnulf.  Lib.  in.  c.  23 ;  Lib.  iv.  c. 
2,  3,  4. 

2  Arnulf.  Lib.  iv.,  Lib.  v.  c.  2,  5,  9. 
— Landulf.  Sen.  Lib.  in.  c.  29,  Lib.  iv. 
c.  2. — Lambert.  Schafnab.  ann.  1077. 


Erlembaldo  was  canonized  by  Urban 
II.  towards  the  end  of  the  century. 
Muratori  (Annal.  ann.  1085)  styles 
Tedaldo  “  capo  e  colonna  maestra  degli 
Scismatici  di  Lombardia.” 


220 


MILAN. 


quarrel — that  pope  and  emperor  without  made  use  of  burgher  and 
noble  within,  and  the  latter  took  sides,  as  respects  simony  and  sacer¬ 
dotal  marriage,  to  further  the  ends  of  individual  ambition.  Still,  the 
disputed  points  of  discipline  were  the  ostensible  causes  of  the  struggle, 
whatever  might  be  the  private  aims  of  civic  factions,  or  of  imperial 
and  papal  rivals ;  and  these  points  gave  a  keener  purpose  to  the 
strife,  and  furnished  an  inexhaustible  supply  of  recruits  to  each  con¬ 
tending  faction.  Thus,  about  the  year  1070,  a  conference  took  place 
at  Milan  between  priests  deputed  by  both  sides,  in  which  the  question 
of  marriage  was  argued  as  earnestly  as  though  it  were  the  source  of 
all  the  intestine  troubles.1  So  wdien,  in  1073,  Gregory,  shortly  after 
his  accession,  addressed  letters  to  Erlembaldo  urging  him  to  persevere 
in  the  good  work,  and  to  the  Lombard  bishops  commanding  them  to 
assist  him,  the  object  of  his  labors  is  assumed  to  be  the  extirpation 
of  simony  and  the  restoration  of  the  clergy  to  the  purity  becoming 
their  sacred  office.2  And  when,  in  1076,  the  schismatic  bishops, 
under  the  lead  of  Tedaldo  of  Milan,  met  in  council  at  Pavia  to 
renounce  all  obedience  to  Gregory,  one  of  the  articles  of  accusation 
brought  against  him  was  that  he  separated  husbands  and  wives,  and 
preferred  licentiousness  to  marriage,  thus  giving,  in  their  grounds  of 
complaint  against  him,  especial  prominence  to  his  zeal  for  the  intro¬ 
duction  of  celibacy.3 

Yet  at  last  the  question  of  sacerdotal  marriage  sank  out  of  sight 
when  the  civil  broils  of  Milan  merged  into  the  European  quarrel 
between  the  empire  and  papacy.  When,  in  1093,  Henry  IY.  was 
driven  out  of  Italy  by  the  revolt  of  his  son  Conrad,  and  the  latter 
was  created  King  of  Lombardy  by  LYban  II.  and  the  Countess 
Matilda,  the  dependence  of  the  young  king  upon  the  pope  rendered 
impossible  any  further  open  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the  church,  and 
public  marriage  there,  as  elsewhere,  was  doubtless  replaced  by  secret 
immorality.4  The  triumph  of  the  sacerdotal  party  was  consummated 


1  Landulf.  Sen.  Lib.  in.  c.  21,  22, 
23,  24,  25. 

2  Gregor.  II.  Legist.  Lib.  i.  Epistt. 
25,  26,  27. 

3  Maritos  ab  uxoribus  separat ; 
scorta  pudicis  conjugibus;  stupra,  in- 
cestus,  adulteria,  casto  praefert  con- 
nubio  ;  populares  adversus  sacerdotes, 
vulgus  adversum  episcopos  concitat. 
— Comit.  Ticinens.  ann.  1076  (Gol- 
dast.  III.  314). 


4  To  this  period  is  no  doubt  referable 
a  fragment  of  a  decretal  addressed  by 
Urban  II.  to  Anselmo,  Archbishop  of 
Milan,  giving  him  instructions  as  to 
the  ceremony  of  restoring  to  the  church 
the  ecclesiastics  who  were  to  be  recon¬ 
ciled  (Ivon.  Decret.  P.  vi.  c.  407 — 
Urbani  II.  Epist.  74) — showing  that 
Milan  had  submitted,  and  that  her 
clergy  were  forced  to  seek  absolution 
and  obey  the  canons.  It  was  this  revo¬ 
lution  in  Lombardy  that  drove  the 
anti-pope  Clement  III.  from  Rome. 


STUBBORNNESS  OF  NICOLITISM. 


221 


at  the  great  council  of  Piacenza,  held  by  Urban  II.  in  February, 
1095,  to  which  prelates  flocked  from  every  part  of  Europe,  and  the 
people  gathered  in  immense  numbers.  If,  as  the  chronicler  informs 
us,  four  thousand  ecclesiastics  and  thirty  thousand  laymen  assembled 
on  the  occasion,  and  the  sessions  were  held  in  the  open  air  because 
no  building  could  contain  the  thronging  masses,  we  may  reasonably 
attribute  so  unprecedented  an  assemblage  to  the  wild  religious  ardor 
which  was  about  to  culminate  in  the  first  Crusade.  That  council 
condemned  Nicolitism  in  the  most  absolute  and  peremptory  manner, 
and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  power  of  so  formidable  a 
demonstration  was  lightly  disregarded.1  Yet  in  Milan,  as  we  shall 
see  elsewhere  throughout  Europe,  the  custom  of  sacerdotal  marriage 
had  become  so  thoroughly  established  that  it  could  not  be  eradicated 
suddenly.  It  continued  to  survive  stubbornly  after  every  attempt  at 
repression  with  more  or  less  openness  as  the  persecution  of  married 
priests  was  more  or  less  severe.  A  synod  held  in  Milan  in  1098  is 
discreetly  silent  as  to  wedlock  or  concubinage  among  ecclesiastics, 
though  it  is  severe  upon  the  concurrent  vice  of  simony,  and  though 
its  prohibition  of  hereditary  succession  in  church  benefices  and  dig¬ 
nities  would  show  that  marriage  among  their  incumbents  must  have 
been  by  no  means  infrequent.  Moreover,  even  as  late  as  1152, 
Mainerio  Boccardo,  a  canon  of  Monza,  in  his  will  specifies  that  cer¬ 
tain  provisions  for  the  benefit  of  his  brother  canons  shall  not  be 
enjoyed  by  those  who  are  married,  thus  proving  that  the  Hildebran- 
dine  reforms  had  not  yet  been  successful,  though  Borne  had  long 
since  attained  its  object  in  breaking  down  the  independence  of  the 
Ambrosian  church.2 


It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  story  of  Milan  is  an  exceptional 
one.  Perhaps  the  factions  there  were  fiercer,  and  the  contest  more 
prolonged,  than  elsewhere ;  but  the  same  causes  were  at  work  in 
other  Italian  cities,  and  were  attended  with  results  similar  in  char¬ 
acter,  if  differing  in  intensity.  In  Lucca,  for  instance,  in  1051,  we 


1  Item  heresis  Nicolaitarum,  id  est 
incontinentium  subdiaconorum,  dia- 
conorum  et  praecipue  sacerdotum  inre- 
tractabiliter  damnata  est,  ut  deinceps 
de  officio  se  non  intromittant  qui  in 
ilia  heresi  manere  non  formidant ; 
nec  populus  eorum  officia  ullo  modo 
recipiat,  si  ipsi  Nicolaitae  contra  haec 


interdicta  ministrare  praesumant. — 
Bernald.  Constant,  ann.  1095. 

The  very  terms  of  this  canon,  how¬ 
ever,  show  that  “Nicolitism”  was  still 
an  existing  fact. 

2  Tamburini,  Storia  generate  delP 
Inquizione,  Milano,  1862,  T.  I.  pp. 
307-9. 


222 


MILAN. 


find  Leo  IX.,  when  confirming  the  possessions  of  the  canons  of  the 
cathedral  church  of  St.  Martin,  expressing  the  hope  that  God  would 
liberate  them  from  their  married  priests,  who  dissipated  the  property 
of  the  foundation,  while  utterly  unworthy  of  partaking  of  the  divine 
oblation.1  His  desire  that  they  would  live  in  concord  and  harmony 
with  their  bishop  was,  however,  not  destined  to  he  long  gratified. 
When  St.  Anselmo,  in  1073,  accepted  the  episcopate  at  the  urgent 
request  of  his  friend,  Gregory  VII.,  he  labored  for  years  to  reform 
the  dissolute  lives  of  his  clergy,  until  at  length  finding  threats  and 
expostulations  alike  ineffectual,  he  implored  the  intervention  of  the 
Countess  Matilda.  Even  the  sovereign  of  Tuscany  was  unable  to 
accomplish  the  submission  of  the  recalcitrant  ecclesiastics,  and  in 
1074  St.  Anselmo  took  advantage  of  the  presence  of  Gregory  VII. 
in  the  city  to  invoke  his  interposition.  The  resolute  pope,  finding 
his  personal  efforts  fruitless,  summoned  the  offenders  to  trial  before 
a  court  of  bishops,  presided  over  by  the  celebrated  Pietro  Igneo, 
Bishop  of  Albano.  Being  condemned  and  excommunicated,  they 
resisted  by  force  of  arms,  excited  a  rebellion  in  the  city,  drove  out 
St.  Anselmo,  and  joined  the  imperialists ;  and  when,  in  1081,  Gui-  * 
berto  the  anti-pope  came  to  Italy,  he  consecrated  their  leader,  a  sub¬ 
deacon  named  Pietro,  as  bishop,  in  place  of  the  exiled  martyr.2  In 
Piacenza,  the  schismatics  were  guilty  of  excesses  more  deplorable, 
for,  not  content  with  deposing  Bonizo,  who  had  been  set  over  them 
as  bishop,  they  gave  him  the  fullest  honors  of  martyrdom  by  pluck¬ 
ing  out  his  eyes  and  then  cutting  him  to  pieces.3  Similar  troubles 
occurred  in  Parma,  Modena,  Reggio,  and  Pistoia,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  death  of  their  respective  schismatic  bishops  that  the 
Countess  Matilda  was  able  to  recover  her  authority  in  those  places. 


1  S.  Leon.  IX.  Epist.  55. 

2  Yit.  S.  Anselmi  Lucensis. — In  his 
collection  of  canons,  St.  Anselmo  is 

careful  to  accumulate  authorities  jus¬ 


tifying  his  course,  and  condemning 
his  antagonists. — S.  Anselmi  Collect. 
Canon.  Lib.  viii.  c.  2,  4,  5,  7,  8,  10. 

3  Bernald.  Constant,  ann.  1089. 


XIV. 


HILDEBRAND. 


Alexander  II.  died  April  21st,  10T3,  and  within  twenty -four 
hours  the  Archdeacon  Hildebrand  was  elected  as  his  successor — a 
promptitude  and  unanimity  which  showed  the  general  recognition  of 
his  fitness  for  the  high  office.  For  more  than  twenty  years  he  had 
been  the  power  behind  the  throne  which  had  directed  and  given  pur¬ 
pose  to  the  policy  of  Rome,  and  the  assertion  of  his  biographers  that 
his  disinclination  for  the  position  had  alone  prevented  his  previous 
elevation  may  readily  be  believed.  Whether  he  was  forced  on  the 
present  occasion  to  assent  to  the  choice  of  the  conclave,  against  his 
earnest  resistance,  is,  however,  more  problematical. 

Hildebrand  was  the  son  of  a  poor  carpenter  of  Soano,  and  had 
been  trained  in  the  ascetic  monachism  of  Cluny.  Gifted  by  nature 
with  rare  sagacity,  unbending  will,  and  indomitable  spirit,  imbued 
with  the  principles  of  the  False  Decretals,  and  firmly  believing  in 
the  wildest  pretensions  of  ecclesiastical  supremacy,  he  had  conceived 
a  scheme  of  hierarchical  autocracy,  which  he  regarded  not  only  as 
the  imprescriptible  right  of  the  church,  but  also  as  the  perfection  of 
human  institutions.  To  the  realization  of  this  ideal  he  devoted  his 
life  with  a  fiery  zeal  and  unshaken  purpose  that  shrank  from  no 
obstacles,  and  to  it  he  was  ready  to  sacrifice  not  only  the  men  who 
stood  in  his  path,  but  also  the  immutable  principles  of  truth  and 
justice.  All  considerations  were  as  dross  compared  with  the  one 
object,  and  his  own  well-being  and  life  wTere  ventured  as  recklessly 
as  the  peace  of  the  world. 

Such  a  man  could  comprehend  the  full  importance  of  the  rule  of 
celibacy,  not  alone  as  essential  to  the  ascetic  purity  of  the  church, 
but  as  necessary  to  the  theocratic  structure  which  he  proposed  to 
elevate  on  the  ruins  of  kingdoms  and  empires.  The  priest  must  be 
a  man  set  apart  from  his  fellows,  consecrated  to  the  one  holy  purpose, 


HILDEBRAND. 


221 

reverenced  by  the  world  as  a  being  superior  to  human  passions  and 
frailties,  devoted,  soul  and  body,  to  the  interests  of  the  church,  and 
distracted  by  no  temporal  cares  and  anxieties  foreign  to  the  welfare 
of  the  great  corporation  of  which  he  was  a  member.  We  have  seen 
the  strenuous  efforts  which,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  successive 
pontiffs  had  unceasingly  made  to  accomplish  this  reform,  and  we  have 
also  seen  how  fruitlessly  those  efforts  were  expended  on  the  passive 
or  active  resistance  of  the  priesthood.  When  Hildebrand  took  the 
reins  into  his  vigorous  grasp,  the  change  at  once  became  manifest, 
and  the  zeal  of  his  predecessors  appears  lukewarm  by  comparison. 
He  had  had  ample  leisure  to  note  how  inefficient  was  the  ordinary 
machinery  to  accomplish  the  result,  and  he  hesitated  not  to  call  to 
his  assistance  external  powers ;  to  give  to  the  secular  princes 
authority  over  ecclesiastics  at  which  enthusiastic  churchmen  stood 
aghast,  and  to  risk  apparently  the  most  precious  immunities  of  the 
church  to  secure  the  result.  The  end  proved  his  wisdom,  for  the 
power  delegated  to  the  laity  for  a  special  object  was  readily  recalled, 
after  it  had  served  its  purpose,  and  the  rebellious  clerks  were  subdued 
and  rendered  fit  instruments  in  the  lapse  of  time  for  humiliating 
their  temporary  masters.  In  one  respect,  however,  Hildebrand’s 
policy  proved  a  blunder.  The  faithful  readily  submitted  to  the 
restoration  of  clerical  immunity,  but  the  idea  that  ecclesiastics  for¬ 
feited  their  privileges  by  sin  became  a  favorite  one  with  almost  all 
heretics,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter  in  the  case  of  the  Albigenses, 
Waldenses,  Wickliffites,  and  Hussites,  costing  the  church  many  a 
desperate  struggle. 

To  Gregory,  as  we  must  hereafter  call  him,  was  generally  at¬ 
tributed,  by  his  immediate  successors,  the  honor  of  introducing,  or  of 
enforcing,  the  absolute  chastity  of  the  ministers  of  the  altar.  Some 
chroniclers  mention  Alexander  II.  or  Leo  IX.  as  participating  in  the 
struggle,  but  to  his  vigorous  management  its  success  was  popularly 
conceded.1  He  earned  the  tribute  thoroughly,  for  during  his  -whole 


1  Cujus  prudentia,  non  solum  in 
Italia  sed  etiam  in  Theutonicis  parti- 
bus  refrenata  est  sacerdotum  incon¬ 
tinentia,  scilicet  quod  praedecessores 
ejus  in  Italia  prohibuerunt,  hoc  ipse  in 
aliis  ecclesife  catholicse  partibus  pro- 
hibere  studiosus  attemptavit. —  Bertold. 
Constant,  ann.  1073. — Also  Bernald. 
Constant,  ann.  1073. 

Gregorius  .  .  .  connubia  clericorurn  , 


a  subdiaconatu  et  supra,  per  totum 
orbem  Romanum  edicto  decretali,  in 
aeternum  prohibuit. — Gotefrid.  Yiterb. 
Chron.  P.  xvn. 

Sed  et  datis  decretis  clericorurn  a 
subdiaconatu  et  supra  connubia  in 
toto  orbe  Romano  cohibuit. — Otton. 
Frisingen.  Chron.  Lib.  vi.  c.  34. 

Eodem  quoque  tempore  canones  an- 
tiqui  de  continentia  ministrorum  sacri 


NECESSITY  OF  CELIBACY. 


225 


pontificate  it  seems  to  have  been  ever  present  to  his  thoughts,  and 
whatever  were  his  preoccupations  in  his  fearful  struggle  with  the 
empire,  on  which  he  risked  the  present  and  the  future  of  the  papacy, 
he  always  had  leisure  to  attend  to  the  one  subject  in  its  minutest 
details  and  in  the  remotest  corner  of  Christendom. 

Perhaps  in  this  there  may  have  been  an  unrecognized  motive 
urging  him  to  action.  Sprung  from  so  humble  an  origin,  he  may 
have  sympathized  with  the  democratic  element,  which  rendered  the 
church  the  only  career  open  to  peasant  and  plebeian.  He  may  have 
felt  that  this  was  a  source  of  hidden  power,  as  binding  the  popula¬ 
tions  more  closely  to  the  church,  and  as  enabling  it  to  press  into 
service  an  unknown  amount  of  fresh  and  vigorous  talent  belonging 
to  men  who  would  owe  everything  to  the  establishment  which  had 
raised  them  from  nothingness,  and  who  would  have  no  relationships 
to  embarrass  their  devotion.  All  this  would  be  lost  if,  by  legalizing 
marriage,  the  hereditary  transmission  of  benefices  inevitably  resulting 
should  convert  the  church  into  a  separate  caste  of  individual  pro¬ 
prietors,  having  only  general  interests  in  common,  and  lazily  lux¬ 
uriating  on  the  proceeds  of  former  popular  beneficence.  To  us, 
retrospectively  philosophizing,  it  further  appears  evident  that  if 
celibacy  were  an  efficient  agent  in  obtaining  for  the  church  the 
immense  temporal  power  and  spiritual  authority  which  it  enjoyed, 
that  very  power  and  that  authority  rendered  celibacy  a  necessity  to 
the  welfare  of  civilization.  When  even  the  humblest  priest  came  to 
be  regarded  as  a  superior  being,  holding  the  keys  of  heaven  in  his 
hand,  and  by  the  machinery  of  confession,  absolution,  and  excom¬ 
munication  wielding  incalculable  influence  over  each  member  of  his 
flock,  it  was  well  for  both  parties  that  the  ecclesiastic  should  be  free 
from  the  ties  of  family  and  the  vulgar  ambition  of  race.  It  is  easy 


altaris  innovari  novis  accedentibus 
praeceptis  coeperunt,  per  hunc  Urba- 
num  Papam  et  praedecessores  suos 
Gregorium  VII.  et  Nicholaum  II. 
atque  Alexandrum  II. — Chron.  Reich- 
ersperg.  ann.  1098. 

Tempore  illo  cum  Gregorius  qui  et 
Hiltebrant  Romani  pontificatus  jura 
disponeret,  hoc  decretum  quidem  an- 
tiquitus  promulgatum,  nunc  autem  in- 
novatum  est,  ut  videlicet  omnes  in 
sacris  ordinibus  constitute  presbyteri 
scilicet  et  diaconi,  a  cohabitationibus 
feminarum  se,  ut  decet,  cohiberent, 
aut  ab  officio  cessarent. — Gest.  Trevir. 


Archiep.  cap.  xxx.  (Martene  Ampliss. 
Collect.  IV.  174). 

Hoc  tamen  ab  eo  tempore  fuit  intro- 
ductum  ut  nullus  ordinaretur  in  pres- 
byterum  conjugatus :  et  ordinandi 
omnes  castitatem  promittere  compel- 
lantur  coram  ordinante. — Chron.  Hir- 
saug.  ann.  1074. 

One  chronicler,  however,  attributes 
the  reform  to  Alexander  II.  “  Con- 
stituit  etiam  ut  nullus  presbyter  sive 
diaconus  vel  subdiaconus,  uxorem  ha- 
beat,  sive  concubinam  in  occidentali 
ecclesia,  sed  ut  sint  casti.” — Chron.  S. 
JEgid.  in  Brunswig,  ann.  1071. 

5 


226 


HILDEBRAND. 


to  see  how  the  churchmen  could  have  selected  matrimonial  alliances 
of  the  most  politic  and  aggrandizing  character ;  and  as  possession  of 
property  and  hereditary  transmission  of  benefices  would  have  neces¬ 
sarily  followed  on  the  permission  to  marry,  an  ecclesiastical  caste, 
combining  temporal  and  spiritual  power  in  the  most  dangerous  excess, 
would  have  repeated  in  Europe  the  distinctions  between  the  Brahman 
and  Sudra  of  India.  The  perpetual  admission  of  self-made  men  into 
the  hierarchy,  which  distinguished  the  church  even  in  times  of  the 
most  aristocratic  feudalism,  was  for  ages  the  only  practical  recog¬ 
nition  of  the  equality  of  man,  and  was  one  of  the  most  powerful 
causes  at  work  during  the  Middle  Ages  to  render  rational  liberty 
eventually  possible  with  advancing  civilization.  Looking  therefore 
upon  the  church  as  an  instrumentality  to  effect  certain  beneficent 
results  in  the  course  of  human  improvement,  we  may  regard  celibacy 
as  a  necessary  element  of  sacerdotalism,  the  abolition  of  which  would 
have  required  the  entire  destruction  of  the  papal  system  and  the 
fundamental  reconstruction  of  ecclesiastical  institutions. 

What  we  may  now  readily  discern  to  have  been  a  means,  to 
Gregory,  however,  was  an  end,  and  to  the  enforcement  of  celibacy  as 
necessary  to  that  object  he  devoted  himself  with  unrelenting  vigor. 
The  belief  that  he  was  appointed  of  God,  and  set  apart  for  the  task 
of  cleansing  the  church  of  the  Nicolitan  heresy  which  had  defied  his 
predecessors  is  well  illustrated  by  the  contemporary  legend  of  some 
pious  Pisans,  who,  spending  the  night  before  his  election  in  prayer 
in  the  basilica  of  St.  Peter,  saw  that  holy  saint  himself  traverse  the 
church  accompanied  by  Hildebrand,  whom  he  commanded  to  gather 
some  droppings  of  mares  with  which  the  sacred  edifice  was  defiled,  to 
place  them  in  a  sack,  and  to  carry  them  out  on  his  shoulders.1  The 
severe  austerity  of  his  virtue,  moreover,  was  displayed  by  his 
admirers  in  the  story  that  once,  when  dangerously  ill,  his  niece  came 
to  inquire  as  to  his  health.  To  relieve  her  anxiety  he  played  with 
her  necklace,  and  jestingly  asked  if  she  wished  to  be  married;  but 
on  his  recovery  he  found  that  he  could  no  longer  weep  with  due  con¬ 
trition  over  his  sins,  and  that  he  had  lost  the  grace  of  repentance. 
He  long  and  vainly  searched  for  the  cause,  and  finally  entreated  his 
friends  to  pray  for  him,  when  the  Virgin  appeared  to  one  of  them, 
and  sent  word  to  Gregory  that  he  had  fallen  from  grace  in  conse- 


1  Paul  Bernried.  Vit.  Gregor  VII.  c.  ii.  §  20. 


HIS  FIRST  EFFORTS. 


227 


quence  of  the  infraction  of  his  vows  committed  in  touching  the 
necklace  of  his  niece.1 


His  first  movement  on  the  subject  appears  to  have  been  an  epistle 
addressed  in  November,  1073,  to  Gfebhardt  Archbishop  of  Salzburg, 
taking  him  severely  to  task  for  his  neglect  in  enforcing  the  canons 
promulgated  not  long  before  in  Rome,  and  ordering  him  to  carry 
them  rigidly  into  effect  among  his  clergy.2  This,  no  doubt,  was  a 
circular  letter  addressed  to  all  the  prelates  of  Christendom,  and  it 
was  but  a  preliminary  step.  Early  in  Lent  of  the  next  year  (March, 
1074),  he  held  his  first  synod,  which  adopted  a  canon  prohibiting 
sacerdotal  marriage,  ordering  that  no  one  in  future  should  be 
admitted  to  orders  without  a  vow  of  celibacy,  and  renewing  the  legis¬ 
lation  of  Nicholas  II.  which  commanded  the  people  not  to  attend  the 
ministrations  of  those  whose  lives  were  a  violation  of  the  rule.3 
There  was  nothing  in  the  terms  of  this  more  severe  than  what  had 
been  decreed  in  innumerable  previous  councils — indeed,  it  was  by  no 
means  as  threatening  as  many  decretals  of  recent  date ;  but  Gregory 
was  resolved  that  it  should  not  remain,  like  them,  a  mere  protest, 
and  he  took  immediate  measures  to  have  it  enforced  wherever  the 
authority  of  Rome  extended. 


1  Pauli  Bernried.  Yit.  Gregor.  VII. 
c.  iii.  §  26. 

Even  Gregory,  however,  was  not 
equal  to  his  contemporary  Hugh,  Bishop 
of  Grenoble,  who,  during  fifty-three 
years  spent  in  the  active  duties  of  his 
calling,  never  saw  the  face  of  a  woman, 
except  that  of  an  aged  mendicant. — 
Bolevink  Fascic.  Temp.  ann.  1074. 

The  fanciful  purity  which  came  to 
be  considered  requisite  to  the  episcopal 
office  is  well  illustrated  by  the  case  of 
Faricius,  Abbot  of  Abingdon,  who  was  I 
elected  to  the  see  of  Canterbury.  His 
suffragans  refused  his  consecration  be¬ 
cause  he  was  a  skilful  leech — “tunc 
electus  est  Faricius  ad  archiepiscopa- 
tum,  sed  episcopus  Lincolniensis  et  , 
episcopus  Salesburiensis  obstiterunt,  di- 
centes  non  debere  archiepiscopum 
urinas  mulierum  inspicere”  (De  Abbat. 
Abbendon.  —  Chron.  Abingdon.  II. 
287).  The  prejudice  against  the  prac¬ 
tice  of  physic  as  incompatible  with  the 
purity  of  an  ecclesiastic  was  wide¬ 
spread  and  long-lived,  as  chronicled  in 
the  canons  of  numerous  councils  pro¬ 
hibiting  it  (e.  g.  Concil.  Claromont. 


ann.  1130  c.  5) — but  it  was  not  always 
so.  In  998  Theodatus,  a  monk  of 
Corvev,  received  the  bishopric  of 
Prague  from  Otho  III.,  as  a  reward  for 
curing  Boleslas  I.,  Duke  of  Bohemia, 
of  paralysis,  by  means  of  a  bath  of 
winer  herbs,  spices,  and  three  living 
black  puppies  four  weeks  old  (Paulini 
Dissert.  Hist.  p.  198)  ;  and  about  the 
year  1200,  Hubert  Walter,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury,  bestowed  the  see  of  St. 
David’s  on  Geoffrey,  Prior  of  Llanthony, 
his  physician,  whose  skill  had  won  his 
gratitude. — Girald.  Cambrens.  de  Jur. 
et  Stat.  Menev.  Eccles.  Dist.  vii. 

2  Gregor.  VII.  Regist.  Lib.  i.  Epist. 
30. 

3  Ut  secundum  instituta  antiquo¬ 
rum  canonum  presbvteri  uxores  non 
habeant,  habentes  aut  dimittant  aut 
deponantur ;  nec  quisquam  omnino  ad 
sacerdotium  admittatur  qui  non  in 
perpetuum  continentiam  vitamque 
ccelibem  profiteatur. — Lambert.  Hers- 
feldens.  ann.  1074.  Cf.  Gregor.  Epist. 
Extrav.  4. 


223 


HILDEBRAND. 


The  controversy  as  respects  Italy  has  already  been  so  fully 
described  that  to  dilate  upon  it  further  would  be  superfluous.  Even 
though  Alexander  II.  in  his  later  years  had  shrunk  somewhat  from 
the  contest,  yet  from  Naples  to  the  Tyrol  the  question  was  thor¬ 
oughly  understood,  and  its  results  depended  more  upon  political 
revolutions  than  on  ecclesiastical  exertions.  Beyond  the  Alps,  how¬ 
ever,  the  efforts  of  preceding  popes  had  thus  far  proved  wholly  nuga¬ 
tory,  and  on  this  field  Gregory  now  bent  all  his  energies.  The  new 
canon  was  sent  to  all  the  bishops  of  Europe,  with  instructions  to 
promulgate  it  throughout  their  respective  dioceses,  and  to  see  that 
it  was  strictly  obeyed ;  while  legates  were  sent  in  every  direction 
to  support  these  commands  with  their  personal  supervision  and 
exertion.1 

That  the  course  which  Gregory  thus  adopted  was  essentially  dif¬ 
ferent  from  that  pursued  by  his  predecessors  is  amply  attested  by  the 
furious  storm  which  these  measures  aroused.  The  clergy  protested 
in  the  most  energetic  terms  that  they  would  rather  abandon  their 
calling  than  their  wives ;  they  denounced  Gregory  as  a  madman  and 
a  heretic,  who  expected  to  compel  men  to  live  as  angels,  and  who  in 
his  folly,  while  denying  to  natural  affection  its  accustomed  and  proper 
gratification,  would  open  the  door  to  indiscriminate  licentiousness ; 
and  they  tauntingly  asked  wThere,  when  he  should  have  driven  them 
from  the  priesthood,  he  expected  to  find  the  angels  who  were  to 
replace  them.2  Even  those  who  favored  celibacy  condemned  the 
means  adopted  as  injudicious,  contrary  to  the  canons,  and  leading  to 
scandals  more  injurious  to  the  church  than  the  worst  of  heresies.3 
Gregory  paid  little  heed  to  threats  or  remonstrances,  but  sent  legate 
after  legate  to  accuse  the  bishops  of  their  inertness,  and  to  menace 
them  with  deposition  if  they  should  neglect  to  carry  out  the  canon 
to  the  letter,  and  he  accompanied  these  measures  with  others  of  even 
more  practically  efficient  character. 


1  As  regards  Germany,  Gregory,  in 
1074,  sent  two  legates  to  Henry  IV., 
who  promulgated  the  canon  in  a  na¬ 
tional  council ;  and  the  next  year  he 
followed  this  up  by  a  legation  em¬ 
powered  to  forbid  the  laity  from 
attending  the  offices  of  married  priests. 
(Herman.  Contract,  ann.  1074-5.) 
His  correspondence,  however,  shows 
that  he  did  not  rely  alone  on  such 
measures,  but  that  he  also  addressed 
the  prelates  directly. 


2  Lambert.  Hersfeldens.  ann.  1074. 

3  Novo  exemplo  et  inconsiderato 
prejudicio,  necnon  et  contra  sanctorum 
patrum  sententiam  ....  ex  qua  re 
tain  grave  scandalum  in  ecclesia  oritur, 
quod  antea  sancta  ecclesia  nullius  hie- 
resis  schismati  tarn  graviter  est  attrita. 
— Chron.  Turonens.  (Martene  Ampl. 
Collect.  V.  1007.) 


THREE  BISHOPS  —  OTHO  OF  CONSTANCE. 


229 


The  bishops,  in  fact,  were  placed  in  a  most  embarrassing  position, 
which  may  be  understood  from  the  adventures  of  three  prelates,  who 
took  different  positions  with  regard  to  the  wishes  of  Gregory — Otho 
of  Constance,  who  leaned  to  the  side  of  the  clergy ;  St.  Altmann  of 
Passau,  who  was  an  enthusiastic  papalist ;  and  Siegfrid  of  Mainz, 
who  was  a  trimmer  afraid  of  both  parties. 

To  Otho,  Gregory,  in  1074,  sent  the  canons  of  the  synod  inhibit¬ 
ing  marriage  and  simony,  with  orders  to  use  every  exertion  to  secure 
the  compliance  of  his  clergy.  Otho  apparently  did  not  manifest 
much  eagerness  to  undertake  the  unpopular  task,  and  Gregory  lost 
little  time  in  calling  him  to  account.  Before  the  year  expired,  we 
find  the  pope  addressing  a  second  epistle  to  the  bishop,  angrily 
accusing  him  of  disobedience  in  permitting  the  ministration  of  mar¬ 
ried  priests,  and  summoning  him  to  answer  for  his  contumacy  at  a 
synod  to  be  held  in  Rome  during  the  approaching  Lent.  Nor  was 
this  all,  for  at  the  same  time  he  wrote  to  the  clergy  and  people  of 
the  diocese,  informing  them  of  the  disobedience  of  their  bishop  and 
of  his  summons  to  trial,  commanding  them,  in  case  of  his  persistent 
rebellion,  to  no  longer  obey  or  reverence  him  as  bishop,  and  formally 
releasing  them  from  all  subjection  to  him.  Otho  doubtless  consid¬ 
ered  it  imprudent  to  show  himself  at  the  synod  of  1075;  conse¬ 
quently  in  that  of  1076  he  was  excommunicated  and  deprived  of  his 
episcopal  functions.  During  the  autumn  of  the  same  year,  however, 
the  legate  Altmann  of  Passau  restored  him  to  communion  at  LTlm, 
but  without  granting  him  the  privilege  of  officiating.  Otho  disre¬ 
garded  this  restriction,  and  not  only  persisted  in  exercising  his  func¬ 
tions,  but  openly  favored  and  protected  the  married  clergy.  For 
this  Gregory  absolved  his  flock  from  all  obedience  to  him,  whereupon 
Otho  abandoned  the  Catholic  party  and  formally  joined  the  impe¬ 
rialists,  who  were  then  engaged  in  the  effort  to  depose  Gregory. 
From  some  motives  of  policy,  the  pope  granted  the  hardened  sinner 
three  years  for  repentance,  at  the  expiration  of  which,  in  1080,  he 
sent  Altmann  to  Constance  to  superintend  the  election  of  another 
bishop.  The  new  incumbent,  however,  proved  incapable  through 
bodily  infirmity ;  and,  in  1084,  Otto  of  Ostia  was  sent  to  Constance, 
and  under  his  auspices  Gebhardt  w'as  elected  bishop,  and  duly  con¬ 
secrated  in  1085. 1  Evidently  Gregory  was  not  a  man  to  abandon 

1  Gregor.  VII.  Epist.  extrav.  4,  12,  13. — Bernald.  pro  Gebhardo  Episc. 
Apologet.  c.  4,  5,  6,  7. 


230 


HILDEBRAND. 


his  purpose,  and  those  who  opposed  him  could  not  count  upon 
perpetual  immunity. 

St.  Altmann  of  Passau  was  renowned  for  his  piety  and  the  strict¬ 
ness  of  his  religious  observance.  When  the  canon  of  1074  reached 
him,  he  assembled  his  clergy,  read  it  to  them,  and  adjured  them  to 
pay  to  it  the  respect  wThich  was  requisite.  His  eloquence  was  wasted ; 
the  clerks  openly  refused  obedience,  and  defended  themselves  by  im¬ 
memorial  custom,  and  by  the  fact  that  none  of  their  predecessors  had 
been  called  upon  to  endure  so  severe  and  unnatural  a  regulation. 
Finding  the  occasion  unpropitious,  the  pious  Altmann  dissembled ; 
he  assured  his  clergy  that  he  was  perfectly  willing  to  indulge  them 
if  the  papal  mandate  would  permit  it,  and  with  this  he  dismissed 
them.  He  allowed  the  matter  to  lie  in  abeyance  until  the  high  feast 
of  St.  Stephen,  the  patron  saint  of  the  church,  which  was  always 
attended  by  the  magnates  of  the  diocese.  Then,  without  giving 
warning  of  his  intentions,  he  suddenly  mounted  the  pulpit,  read  to 
the  assembled  clergy  and  laity  the  letters  of  the  pope,  and  threatened 
exemplary  punishment  for  disobedience.  Though  thus  taken  at 
advantage  and  by  surprise,  the  clerks  were  not  disposed  to  submit. 
A  terrible  tumult  at  once  arose,  and  the  crafty  saint  would  have  been 
torn  to  pieces  had  it  not  been  for  the  strenuous  interference  of  the 
nobles,  aided,  as  his  biographer  assures  us,  by  the  assistance  of  God. 
The  clergy  continued  their  resistance,  and  when,  not  long  after,  the 
empire  and  papacy  became  involved  in  internecine  strife,  they  sought 
the  protection  of  Henry  IV.,  who  marched  upon  Passau,  and  drove 
out  St.  Altmann  and  his  faction.  How  unbending  was  this  oppo¬ 
sition,  and  how  successfully  it  was  maintained,  is  manifest  from  the 
fact  that  when  St.  Altmann  at  length  returned  to  his  diocese  as  papal 
legate,  about  the  year  1081,  even  Gregory  felt  it  necessary  to  use 
policy  rather  than  force,  and  instructed  him  to  yield  to  the  pressure 
of  the  evil  times,  and  to  reserve  the  strict  enforcement  of  the  reform 
for  a  more  fortunate  period.1  The  political  question  had  thus,  for 
the  moment,  overshadowed  the  religious  one. 

The  archiepiscopate  of  Mainz  was,  both  temporally  and  spiritually, 
one  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  ecclesiastical  principalities  of  Ger¬ 
many.  To  the  Archbishop  Siegfrid,  Gregory  sent  the  canon  of 
1074  with  instructions  similar  to  those  contained  in  his  epistle  to 

1  Vit.  S.  Altrrmnni. — Hinc  capitu-  castitatis  dissimulatum  non  appro- 
lum  illud  de  incontinentia  sacer-  !  batum  remansit. 
dotum  a  tam  invicto  propugnatore  j 


THREE  BISHOPS  —  SIEGFRID  OF  MAINZ. 


231 


Otho  of  Constance.  In  reply,  Siegfrid  promised  implicit  obedience ; 
but,  recognizing  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties  of  the  task  assigned 
him,  he  temporized,  and  gave  his  clergy  six  months  in  which  to  make 
up  their  minds,  exhorting  them  to  render  willing  obedience  and  relieve 
him  from  the  necessity  of  employing  coercion.  At  the  expiration  of 
the  period,  in  October,  1074,  he  assembled  a  synod  at  Erfurt,  where 
he  boldly  insisted  that  they  should  give  up  their  wives  or  abandon 
their  functions  and  their  benefices.  Their  arguments  and  entreaties 
were  in  vain.  Finding  him  immovable,  they  retired  for  consultation, 
when  some  proposed  to  separate  and  return  home  at  once,  without 
further  parley,  and  thus  elude  giving  sanction  to  the  new  regulations ; 
while  bolder  spirits  urged  that  it  would  be  better  to  put  the  arch¬ 
bishop  to  instant  death,  before  he  could  promulgate  so  execrable  a 
decree,  thus  leaving  for  posterity  a  shining  example,  which  would 
prevent  any  of  his  successors  from  attempting  so  abominable  an 
enterprise. 

Siegfrid’s  friends  advised  him  of  the  turn  which  affairs  were  likely 
to  take.  He  therefore  sent  to  his  clergy  a  request  that  they  would 
reassemble  in  synod,  promising  that  he  would  take  the  first  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  apply  to  Rome  for  a  relaxation  of  the  canon.  They  agreed 
to  this,  and,  on  meeting  them  the  next  day,  Siegfrid  astutely  started 
the  question  of  his  claims  on  the  Thuringian  tithes,  which  had 
shortly  before  been  settled  by  the  Saxon  war.  Indignant  at  this, 
the  Thuringian  clergy  raised  a  tumult,  flew  to  arms,  and  the  synod 
broke  up  in  the  utmost  confusion.  In  December,  Gregory  wrote  to 
the  shuffling  archbishop  an  angry  letter,  reproaching  him  with  his 
lukewarmness  in  the  cause,  and  ordering  him  to  present  himself  at 
the  synod  announced  for  the  coming  Lent.  Siegfrid  obediently  went 
to  Rome,  but  was  with  difficulty  admitted  to  communion.  What 
promises  he  made  to  obtain  it  were  not  kept,  for  again  in  September, 
1075,  Gregory  addressed  him  with  commands  to  enforce  the  canons. 
Stimulated  by  this,  Siegfrid  convoked  a  synod  at  Mainz  in  October, 
where  the  Bishop  of  Coire  appeared  with  a  papal  mandate  threat¬ 
ening  him  with  degradation  and  expulsion  if  he  failed  in  compelling 
the  priests  to  abandon  either  their  wives  or  their  ministry.  Thus 
goaded,  Siegfrid  did  his  best,  but  the  whole  body  of  the  clergy  raised 
such  a  clamor  and  made  demonstrations  so  active  and  so  formidable 
that  the  archbishop  saw  little  prospect  of  escaping  with  life.  The 
danger  from  his  mutinous  flock  was  more  instant  and  pressing  than 
that  from  the  angry  pope ;  his  resolution  gave  way,  and  he  dissolved 


232 


HILDEBRAND. 


the  synod,  declaring  that  he  washed  his  hands  of  the  affair,  and  that 
Gregory  might  deal  as  he  saw  fit  with  a  matter  which  was  beyond 
his  power  to  control.  Thus  placed  between  the  upper  and  the  nether 
millstone,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  Siegfrid  took  refuge  in  the 
party  of  the  imperialists,  nor  that  his  name  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
list  of  bishops  who  in  1076  passed  judgment  on  Gregory,  and  pro¬ 
nounced  that  he  had  forfeited  all  claim  to  the  papacy ;  neither  is  it 
surprising  that  Gregory  lost  no  time  in  excommunicating  him  at 
the  Roman  synod  of  the  same  year.1 

These  examples  are  sufficient  to  illustrate  the  difficulties  with 
which  Gregory  had  to  contend,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  en¬ 
deavored  to  overcome  them.  The  incidents  are  by  no  means  excep¬ 
tional,  and  his  marvellous  vigor  and  energy  in  supervising  the 
movement  everywhere,  encouraging  the  zealous  co-worker  and  pun¬ 
ishing  the  lukewarm  and  indifferent,  are  abundantly  attested  by  his 
correspondence.  He  apparently  had  an  eye  on  every  corner  of 
Europe,  and  lost  no  opportunity  of  enforcing  his  view’s  wTith  threats 
or  promises,  as  the  case  might  seem  to  demand.2 

It  did  not  take  long,  however,  to  convince  him  that  he  could  count 
upon  no  efficient  assistance  from  the  hierarchy,  and  that  if  the  church 
was  to  be  purified,  it  must  be  purified  from  without,  and  not  from 
within.  To  the  unutterable  horror  of  those  strict  churchmen  who 
regarded  the  immunity  from  all  temporal  supervision  or  jurisdiction 
as  one  of  the  most  precious  of  ecclesiastical  privileges,  he  took,  as 
early  as  1074,  the  decided  and  unprecedented  step  of  authorizing  the 
laity  to  withdraw  their  obedience  from  all  prelates  and  priests  who 
disregarded  the  canons  of  the  Holy  See  on  the  subjects  of  simony 


1  Gregor.  VII.  Epist.  extrav.  12. — 
Lambert.  Hersfeld.  ann.  1074-5-6. — 
Udalr.  Babenb.  Cod.  Lib.  n.  c.  132. 
— Gregor.  Regist.  Lib.  n.  Epist.  29. — 
Goldast.  Constit.  Imp.  I.  237. 

An  encyclical  letter  of  Siegfrid,  in 
1075,  states  that  Gregory  had  sent  to 
his  diocese  commissioners  to  reform  the 
immorality  of  the  clergy,  and  that  they 
had  labored  earnestly,  but  fruitlessly, 
to  accomplish  the  task  by  a  liberal  use 
of  suspension  and  excommunication. 
He  had  thereupon  reported  to  the  pope 
the  scandal  and  infamy  of  his  church, 
when  Gregor}*,  considering  the  multi¬ 
tude  of  the  transgressors,  counselled 


i  moderation.  Siegfrid  therefore  orders 
!  all  incorrigible  offenders  to  be  sus¬ 
pended  and  sent  to  him  for  judgment. 
(Hartzheim  Concil.  German.  III. 
175.) — Hartzheim  also  (III.  749)  gives, 
under  date  of  1077,  another  letter  from 
Siegfrid  to  Gregory,  in  which  he  prom¬ 
ises  to  do  his  best  in  reforming  the 
clergy,  but  advises  moderation  towards 
those  whose  weakness  merits  compas¬ 
sion. 

2  See,  for  instance,  Lib.  i.  Epist.  30 ; 
Lib.  ii.  Epistt.  25,  55,  61,  62,  64,  66,  67, 
68;  Lib.  in.  Epist.  4;  Lib.  iv.  Epistt. 
10,  11,  20;  Lib.  vn.  Epist.  1  ;  Epistt. 
extrav.  4,  12.  13,  etc. 


APPEAL  TO  THE  LAITY. 


233 


and  incontinence.1  This  principle,  once  adopted,  was  followed  up 
with  his  customary  unalterable  resolution.  In  October,  1074,  he 
wrote  to  a  certain  Count  Albert,  exhorting  him  not  to  mind  what 
the  simoniacal  and  concubinary  priests  might  say,  but,  in  spite  of 
them,  to  persist  in  enforcing  the  orders  which  emanated  from  Rome. 
Still  more  menacing  was  an  epistle  addressed  in  January,  1075,  to 
Rodolf,  Duke  of  Swabia,  and  Bertolf,  Duke  of  Carinthia,  command¬ 
ing  them — “whatever  the  bishops  may  say  or  may  not  say  con¬ 
cerning  this,  do  you  in  no  manner  receive  the  ministrations  of  those 
who  owe  promotion  or  ordination  to  simony,  or  whom  you  know  to 
be  guilty  of  concubinage  .  .  .  and,  as  far  as  you  can,  do  you  pre¬ 
vent,  by  force  if  necessary,  all  such  persons  from  officiating.  And 
if  any  shall  presume  to  prate  and  say  that  it  is  not  your  business, 
tell  them  to  come  to  us  and  dispute  about  the  obedience  which  we 
thus  enjoin  upon  you” — and  adding  a  bitter  complaint  of  the  arch¬ 
bishops  and  bishops  who,  with  rare  exceptions,  had  taken  no  steps 
to  put  an  end  to  these  execrable  customs,  or  to  punish  the  guilty.2 

These  extraordinary  measures  called  forth  indignant  denunciations 
on  the  part  of  ecclesiastics,  for  these  letters  were  circulars  sent  to  all 
the  princes  on  whom  he  could  depend,  and  he  insured  their  publicity 
by  causing  similar  orders  to  be  published  in  the  churches  themselves. 
Thus  Theodoric,  Bishop  of  Verdun,  who  had  inclined  to  the  side  of 
Gregory  and  had  secretly  left  the  Assembly  of  Utrecht  in  1076  to 
avoid  countenancing  by  his  presence  the  excommunication  then  pro¬ 
nounced  against  the  pope,  in  a  letter  to  Gregory  bitterly  reproaches 
his  own  folly  in  promulgating  the  decretal  and  in  not  foreseeing  its 
effect  as  destructive  to  the  peace  of  the  church,  to  the  safety  of  the 
clerical  order,  and  as  creating  a  disturbance  which  threatened  even  the 
Christian  faith.3  So  Henry,  Bishop  of  Speyer,  indignantly  de¬ 
nounced  him  as  having  destroyed  the  authority  of  the  bishops  and 


1  His  praecipimus  vos  nullo  moclo 
obedire,  vel  eorum  praeceptis  consen- 
tire,  sicut  ipsi  apostolicae  sedis  prae- 
ceptis  non  obediunt,  neque  auctoritati 
sanctorum  patrum  consentiunt. — Gre¬ 
gor.  VII.  Epist.  extrav.  14.  “  Omnibus 
clericis  et  laicis  in  regno  Teutonicorum 
constitute.  ” 

2  Regist.  Lib.  n.  Epist.  45. 

Letters  conceived  in  the  same  spirit 

are  extant,  addressed  to  the  principal 
laymen  of  Chiusi  in  Tuscany,  to  the 
Count  ard  Countess  of  Flanders,  &c. 


(Lib.  ii.  Epist.  47 ;  Lib.  iv.  Epistt.  10, 
11.) 

3  Martene  et  Durand.  Thesaur.  I. 
218. — Hugon.  Flavin.  Chron.  Lib.  II. 
ann.  1079. — Cf.  Chron.  Augustinens. 
ann.  1075.  Theodoric  was  naturally 
forced  in  the  end  to  take  a  decided 
stand  against  Gregory.  See  his  letter 
in  Goldastus,  T.  I.  p.  236,  and  the  ac¬ 
count  of  his  episcopate  in  the  Gesta 
Trevir.  Archiep.  (Martene  Ampl. 
Collect.  IV.  175-8). 


234 


HILDEBRAND. 


subjected  the  church  to  the  madness  of  the  people;1  and  when  the 
bishops,  at  the  Diet  of  Worms,  threw  off  their  allegiance  to  him,  one  of 
the  reasons  alleged,  in  Henry’s  letter  to  him,  is  the  surrender  which 
he  had  made  of  the  church  to  the  laity.2  Yet  Gregory  was  not  to 
be  diverted  from  his  course,  and  he  was  at  least  successful  in  rousing 
the  Teutonic  church  from  the  attitude  of  passive  resistance  which 
threatened  to  render  his  efforts  futile.  The  princes  of  Germany, 
who  were  already  intriguing  with  Gregory  for  support  in  their 
perennial  revolts  against  their  sovereign,  were  delighted  to  seize  the 
opportunity  of  at  once  obliging  the  pope,  creating  disturbance  at 
home,  and  profiting  by  the  church  property  which  they  could  manage 
to  get  into  their  hands  by  ejecting  the  unfortunate  married  priests. 
They  accordingly  proceeded  to  exercise,  without  delay  and  to  the 
fullest  extent,  the  unlimited  power  so  suddenly  granted  them  over  a 
class  which  had  hitherto  successfully  defied  their  jurisdiction ;  nor 
was  it  difficult  to  excite  the  people  to  join  in  the  persecution  of  those 
who  had  always  held  themselves  as  superior  beings,  and  who  were 
now  pronounced  by  the  highest  authority  in  the  church  to  be  sinners 
of  the  worst  description.  The  ignorant  populace  were  naturally 
captivated  by  the  idea  of  the  vicarious  mortification  with  which  their 
own  errors  were  to  be  redeemed  by  the  abstinence  imposed  upon 
their  pastors,  and  they  were  not  unreasonably  led  to  believe  that 
they  wTere  themselves  deeply  wronged  by  the  want  of  purity  in  their 
ecclesiastics.  Add  to  this  the  attraction  which  persecution  always 
possesses  for  the  persecutor,  and  the  license  of  plunder  so  dear  to  a 
turbulent  and  barbarous  age,  and  it  is  not  difficult  to  comprehend  the 
motive  power  of  the  storm  wffiich  burst  over  the  heads  of  the  secular 
clergy,  and  which  must  have  satisfied  by  its  severity  the  stern  soul 
of  Gregory  himself. 

A  contemporary  writer,  whose  name  has  been  lost,  but  who  is 
supposed  by  Dom  Martene  to  have  been  a  priest  of  Treves,  gives  us 
a  very  lively  picture  of  the  horrors  which  ensued,  and  as  he  shows 
himself  friendly  in  principle  to  the  reform  attempted,  his  account 
may  be  received  as  trustworthy.  He  describes  what  amounted 


1  Udalr.  Babenb.  Cod.  Lib.  n.  cap. 
1G2. 

2  Annalista  Saxo,  ann.  1076. 

We  have  already  seen  (p.  142)  that 
Nicholas  I.,  in  the  ninth  century,  had 
expressly  forbidden  any  popular  inter¬ 


ference  with  married  priests,  and  it  is 
a  little  singular  to  observe  that  his 
decretal  on  the  subject  is  extracted  by 
Ivo  of  Chartres  (Decreti  P.  n.  cap. 
82)  and  presented  as  valid  law,  in  less 
than  a  generation  after  the  death  of 
Gregory  VII. 


PERSECUTION  OF  THE  CLERGY. 


235 


almost  to  a  dissolution  of  society,  slave  betraying  master  and  master 
slave ;  friend  informing  against  friend ;  snares  and  pitfalls  spread 
before  the  feet  of  all ;  faith  and  truth  unknown.  The  peccant  priests 
suffered  terribly.  Some,  reduced  to  utter  poverty,  and  unable  to 
bear  the  scorn  and  contempt  of  those  from  whom  they  had  been  wont 
to  receive  honor  and  respect,  wandered  off  as  homeless  exiles  ;  others, 
mutilated  by  the  indecent  zeal  of  ardent  puritans,  were  carried 
around  to  exhibit  their  shame  and  misery ;  others,  tortured  in 
lingering  death,  bore  to  the  tribunal  on  high  the  testimony  of  blood- 
guiltiness  against  their  persecutors ;  while  others,  again,  in  spite  of 
danger,  secretly  continued  the  connections  which  exposed  them  to  all 
these  cruelties.  In  the  midst  of  these  troubles,  as  might  be  expected, 
the  offices  of  religion  were  wholly  neglected;  the  newT-born  babe 
received  no  holy  baptism ;  the  dying  penitent  expired  without  the 
saving  viaticum  ;  the  sinner  could  cleanse  his  soul  by  no  confession 
and  absolution ;  and  the  devotee  could  no  longer  be  strengthened  by 
the  daily  sacrifice  of  the  mass.1  Another  writer,  of  nearly  the  same 
date,  relates  with  holy  horror  how  the  laity  shook  off  all  the  obedience 
which  they  owed  to  their  pastors,  and,  despising  the  sacraments  pr  e- 
pared  by  them,  trod  the  Eucharist  under  foot  and  cast  out  the  sacred 
wine,  administered  baptism  with  unlicensed  hands,  and  substituted 
for  the  holy  chrism  the  filthy  wax  collected  from  their  own  ears.2 

When  such  was  the  fate  of  the  pastors,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  the 
misery  inflicted  on  their  unfortunate  wives.  A  zealous  admirer  of 
Gregory  relates  with  pious  gratulation,  as  indubitable  evidence  of 
divine  vengeance,  how,  maddened  by  their  wTrongs,  some  of  them 
openly  committed  suicide,  while  others  were  found  dead  in  the  beds 
which  they  had  sought  in  perfect  health ;  and  this  being  proof  of 
their  possession  by  the  devil,  they  were  denied  Christian  sepulture. 
The  case  of  Count  Manigold  of  Yeringen  affords  a  not  uninstructive 
instance  of  the  frightful  passions  aroused  by  the  relentless  cruelty 
which  thus  branded  them  as  infamous,  tore  them  from  their  families, 
and  cast  them  adrift  upon  a  mocking  world.  The  count  had  put  in 
force  the  orders  of  Gregory  with  strict  severity  throughout  his  estates 
in  the  Swabian  Alps.  One  miserable  creature  thus  driven  from  her 


1  The  writer  indignantly  adds — “  Si 
autem  quaeris  talis  fructus  a  qua  radice 
pullulaverit,  lex  ad  laicos  promulgata, 
qua  imperitis  persuasum  est  conjuga- 
torum  sacerdotum  missas  et  quaecum- 


que  per  eos  implentur  mvsteria  fugi- 
enda  esse,  in  reipublicae  nostrae  ornatum 
illud  adjecit.”  —  Martene  et  Durand. 
Thesaur.  I.  230-1. 

2  Sigebert.  Gemblac.  ann.  1074. 


236 


HILDEBRAND. 


husband  swore  that  the  count  should  undergo  the  same  fate,  and,  in 
the  blindness  of  her  rage,  she  poisoned  the  Countess  of  Veringen, 
whose  widowed  husband,  overwhelmed  with  grief,  sought  no  second 
mate.1 

Nor  was  the  customary  machinery  of  miracles  wanting  to  stimu¬ 
late  the  zeal  of  the  faithful  in  this  pious  work,  and  to  convince  the 
doubters  whose  worldly  wisdom  or  humanity  might  shrink  from  the 
task  assigned  them.  Unchaste  priests  at  Mass  would  find  sudden 
blasts  of  wind  overturn  the  cup,  and  scatter  the  sacred  wine  upon 
the  ground,  or  the  holy  wafer  would  be  miraculously  snatched  out  of 
their  polluted  hands.  The  saintly  virgin  Herluca  saw  in  a  vision 
the  Saviour,  with  his  wounds  profusely  bleeding,  and  was  told  that 
if  she  desired  to  escape  a  repetition  of  the  horrifying  spectacle,  she 
must  no  longer  be  present  at  the  ministrations  of  Father  Richard, 
the  officiating  priest  of  her  convent — a  revelation  which  she  employed 
effectually  upon  him  and  his  parishioners.  The  same  holy  maiden 
being  observed  staring  intently  out  of  the  window,  declared,  upon 
being  questioned,  that  she  had  seen  the  soul  of  the  priest  of  Rota 
carried  off  by  demons  to  eternal  punishment ;  and,  on  sending  to  his 
habitation,  it  was  found  that  he  had  expired  at  the  very  moment.2 
Puerile  as  these  tales  may  seem  to  us,  they  were  stern  realities  to 
those  against  whose  weaknesses  they  were  directed,  and  whose  suf¬ 
ferings  were  thus  enhanced  by  every  art  which  bigotry  could  bring 
to  bear  upon  the  credulous  passions  of  a  barbarous  populace. 

It  cannot  be  a  matter  of  surprise  if  men,  who  were  thus  threatened 
with  almost  every  worldly  evil,  should  seek  to  defend  themselves  by 
means  as  violent  as  those  employed  by  their  persecutors.  Their 
cruel  intensity  of  fear  is  aptly  illustrated  by  what  occurred  at  Cam- 
brai  in  1077,  where  a  man  was  actually  burned  at  the  stake  as  a 
heretic  for  declaring  his  adhesion  to  the  Hildebrandine  doctrine  that 
the  masses  of  simoniacal  and  concubinary  priests  were  not  to  be 
listened  to  by  the  faithful.3  So,  in  the  same  year,  when  the  pseudo¬ 
emperor  Rodolf  of  Swabia  was  elected  by  the  papalists  at  the  Diet 
of  Forcheim  as  a  competitor  to  Henry  IV.,  he  manifested  his  zeal  to 
suppress  the  heresies  of  avarice  and  lust  by  refusing  the  ministration 
of  a  simoniacal  deacon  in  the  coronation  solemnities  at  Mainz.  The 
clergy  of  that  city,  who  had  so  successfully  resisted,  for  two  years, 

1  Pauli  Bernried.  Yit.  Gregor.  VII.  No.  81,  107. 

2  Ibid.  No.  105,  106,  107. 

3  Gregor.  VII.  liegist.  Lib.  iv.  Epist.  20. 


POLITICAL  ASPECT  OF  THE  REFORM. 


237 


the  efforts  of  their  archbishop  Siegfrid  to  reduce  them  to  subjection 
to  the  canons,  were  dismayed  at  the  prospect  of  coming  under  the 
control  of  so  pious  a  prince,  who  would  indubitably  degrade  them  or 
compel  them  to  give  up  their  wives  and  simoniacally  acquired  churches. 
They  therefore  stirred  up  a  tumult  among  the  citizens,  who  were 
ready  to  espouse  their  cause ;  and  when  Rodolf  left  his  palace  for 
vespers,  he  was  attacked  by  the  people.  The  conflict  was  renewed 
on  his  return,  causing  heavy  slaughter  on  both  sides,  and  though  the 
townsmen  were  driven  back,  Rodolf  was  forced  to  leave  the  city.1 


This  incident  affords  us  a  glimpse  into  the  political  aspects  of  the 
reform.  In  the  tremendous  struggle  between  the  empire  and  papacy, 
Gregory  allied  himself  with  all  the  disaffected  princes  of  Germany, 
and  they  were  careful  to  justify  their  rebellions  under  the  specious 
pretext  of  zeal  for  the  apostolic  church.  They  of  course,  therefore, 
entered  heartily  into  his  measures  for  the  restoration  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline,  and  professed  the  sternest  indignation  towards  those  whom 
he  placed  under  the  ban.  Thus,  after  Henry,  in  1076,  had  caused 
his  bishops  to  declare  the  degradation  of  Gregory,  when  the  revolted 
princes  held  their  assembly  at  Tribur,  and  in  turn  decreed  the  depo¬ 
sition  of  Henry,  they  used  the  utmost  caution  to  exclude  all  who  had 
communicated  with  Henry  since  his  excommunication,  together  with 
those  who  had  obtained  preferment  by  simony,  or  who  had  joined  in 
communion  with  married  priests.2  The  connection,  indeed,  became 
so  marked  that  the  papalists  throughout  Germany  were  stigmatized 
by  the  name  of  Patarini — a  term  which  had  acquired  so  sinister  a 
significance  in  the  troubles  of  Milan.3  In  this  state  of  affairs  it  was 
natural  that  common  enmities  and  common  dangers  should  unite  the 
persecuted  clergy  and  the  hunted  sovereign.  Yet  it  is  a  curious 
illustration  of  the  influence  which  the  denunciations  of  sacerdotal 
marriage  had  exercised  over  the  public  mind,  that  although  Henry 
tacitly  protected  the  simoniacal  and  married  ecclesiastics,  and  although 
they  rallied  around  him  and  afforded  him  unquestionable  and  invalu¬ 
able  aid,  still  he  never  ventured  openly  to  defend  them.  Writers 


1  Pauli  Bernried.  Vit.  Gregor.  YI I. 
No.  87. — Ekkehard  of  Uraugen  and 
the  Annalista  Saxo,  however,  in  their 
accounts  of  these  disturbances,  attrib¬ 
ute  them  to  political  rather  than  to 
ecclesiastical  causes.  The  latter,  no 
doubt,  would  hardly  have  been  effi¬ 


cient  without  the  former.  The  efforts 
of  Henry  to  reduce  the  savage  feudal 
nobles  to  order  made  him,  throughout 
his  reign,  a  favorite  with  the  cities. 

2  Lambert.  Hersfeld.  ann.  1076. 

3  Hugon.  Flaviniac.  Lib.  n. 


238 


HILDEBRAND. 


both  then  and  since  have  attributed  the  measure  of  success  with 
which  he  sustained  the  fluctuating  contest,  and  the  consequent  suf¬ 
ferings  of  the  unbending  pope,  to  the  efforts  of  the  recalcitrant  clergy 
who  resisted  the  yoke  imposed  on  them  by  Rome.1  Yet  Henry  had 
formally  and  absolutely  pledged  his  assistance  when  Gregory  com¬ 
menced  his  efforts,  and  had  repeated  the  promise  in  1075; 2  and  from 
this  position  he  never  definitely  withdrew.  Even  when  the  schis¬ 
matic  bishops  of  his  party,  at  the  synod  of  Brixen,  in  1080,  pro¬ 
nounced  sentence  of  deposition  on  Gregory,  and  filled  the  assumed 
vacancy  with  an  anti-pope,  the  man  whom  they  elected  never  ven¬ 
tured  to  dispute  the  principle  of  Gregory’s  reforms,  although  the 
Lombard  prelates,  at  that  very  time,  were  warmly  defending  their 
married  and  simoniacal  clergy.3  Indeed,  Guiberto  of  Ravenna,  or 
Clement  III.,  took  occasion  to  express  his  detestation  of  concubinage 
in  language  nearlv  as  strong  as  that  of  his  rival,  although  he  threat- 
ened  with  excommunication  the  presumptuous  laymen  who  should 
refuse  to  receive  the  sacraments  of  priests  that  had  not  been  regu¬ 
larly  tried  and  condemned  at  his  own  papal  tribunal.4  In  thus 


1  Ob  hanc  igitur  causam,  quia  sci¬ 
licet  sanctam  Dei  ecclesiam  castam  esse 
volebat,  liberam  atque  catholicam,  quia 
de  sanctuario  Dei  simoniacam  et  neo¬ 
phytorum  haeresim  et  fedam  libidinosae 
contagionis  pollutionem  volebat  expel- 
lere,  membra  diaboli  coeperunt  in  eum 
insurgere,  et  usque  ad  sanguinem  prae-  ; 
sumpserunt  in  eum  manus  injicere. — 
Hugon.  Flaviniac.  Lib.  ii. 

Eo  vesaniae  imperatorem  induxerat  1 
caeca  sacerdotum  (qui  tunc  frequentes 
apud  eum  erant)  libido.  Timebant 
enim  si  cum  pontifice  in  gratiam  redi- 
ret,  actum  esse  de  concubinis  suis, 
quas  illi  pluris  quam  vel  propriam 
salutem  vel  publicam  pendebant  ho- 
nestatem.  —  Hieron.  Emser  Yit.  S. 
Bennon.  c.  in.  §  40. 

Gregory’s  celebrated  exclamation 
on  his  death-bed  does  not,  however, 
specially  recognize  this — “  Dilexi  jus- 
titiam  et  odivi  iniquitatem,  propterea 
morior  in  exilio.” 

2  Gregor.  VII.  Regist.  Lib.  i.  Epist. 
30;  Lib.  in.  Epist.  3. 

3  According  to  Conrad  of  Ursperg  I 
(Chron.  ann.  1080)  among  the  reasons 
adduced  for  the  deposition  of  Gregory  | 
by  the  synod  of  Brixen,  was  “  Qui 
inter  Concordes  seminavit  discordiam, 
inter  pacificos  lites,  inter  fratres  scan- 


dala,  inter  conjuges  divo?'tia,  et  quic- 
quid  quiete  inter  pie  viventes  stare 
videbatur,  concussit” — in  which  the 
words  italicized  may  possibly  allude 
to  the  separation  of  the  married 
clergy.  Conrad,  however,  was  a  com¬ 
piler  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and 
his  statements  are  not  to  be  received 
without  caution.  If  this  motive  had 
its  weight  with  the  prelates  of  the 
synod,  they  did  not  care  to  publish  it 
to  the  world,  for  there  is  no  allusion 
to  it  in  the  letter  of  renunciation  ad¬ 
dressed  by  them  to  Gregory  (Goldast. 
Const.  Imp.  I.  238) — forming  a  strik¬ 
ing  contrast  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
synod  of  Pavia  in  1076,  already  al¬ 
luded  to. 

4  TTibert  Antipap.  Epist.  vi. 

Bishop  Benzo,  the  most  bitter  of 
imperialists,  did  not  desire  to  be  con¬ 
founded  with  the  Nicolitan  heretics — 

“  Onmis  enim  caste  vivens  templum  Dei 
dicitur ; 

Si  quis  tantum  sacramentum  violare  ni- 
titur, 

Unas  de  porcorum  grege  protinus  efficitur. 

Facti  coelibes  ardentem  fugiamus  Sodo- 
mam  : 

Hierosolymam  petamus,  Christianis  com- 

modain.” 

Comment,  de  Reb.  Hen.  IY.  Lib.  v. 

c.  G. 


HIS  FINAL  TRIUMPH. 


239 


endeavoring  to  place  himself  as  a  shield  between  the  suffering  priest¬ 
hood  and  the  persecuting  populace,  he  was  virtually  striving  to 
annul  the  reforms  of  Gregory,  since  in  no  other  way  could  they  be 
carried  into  effect ;  but  he  was  forced  to  coincide  with  Gregory  as  to 
the  principle  which  dictated  those  reforms.  Notwithstanding  all 
these  precautions,  however,  the  papalists  were  not  disposed  to  allow 
their  opponents  to  escape  the  responsibility  of  the  alliance  which 
brought  them  so  much  strength  by  dividing  the  church,  and  no 
opportunity  was  lost  of  stigmatizing  them  for  the  license  which  they 
protected.  When  Guiberto  and  his  cardinals  were  driven  out  of 
Rome  in  1084  by  Robert  Guiscard  and  his  Normans,  the  hying 
prelates  were  ridiculed,  not  for  their  cowardice,  but  for  their  shaven 
chins,  and  the  wives  and  concubines  whom  they  publicly  carried 
about  with  them.1 

At  length  Henry  and  his  partisans  appear  to  have  felt  it  necessary 
to  make  some  public  declaration  to  relieve  themselves  from  the  odium 
of  supporting  and  favoring  a  practice  which  was  popularly  regarded 
as  a  heresy  and  a  scandal.  When  the  papalists,  under  their  King 
Hermann,  at  the  Easter  of  1085  (April  20th),  convened  a  general 
assembly  of  their  faction  at  Quedlinburg  and  again  forbade  all  com¬ 
merce  with  women  to  those  in  orders,2  the  imperialists  lost  no  time 
in  putting  themselves  on  the  same  record  with  their  rivals.  Three 
weeks  later  Henry  gathered  around  him,  at  Mainz,  all  the  princes 
and  prelates  who  professed  allegiance  to  him,  for  the  purpose  of 
securing  the  succession  to  his  eldest  son,  Conrad,  as  King  of  Ger¬ 
many,  and  there,  in  that  solemn  diet,  marriage  was  formally  pro¬ 
hibited  to  the  priesthood.3  Gregory  was  then  lying  on  his  dying 
bed  in  the  far  off  castle  of  Salerno,  and  ere  the  news  could  reach 


1  Honorius  III.  in  Vit.  Gregor.  VII. 
No.  15. 

2  Bernald.  Constant,  ad  Herman. 
Contract.  Append,  ann.  1085. 

3  Henricus  multitudinem  sequens, 
accessit  eis  qui  sacerdotum  conjugium 
sublatum  volebant.  Quare  resistentes 
ei  opinioni  condemnati  sunt. — H.  Mu- 
tii  German.  Chron.  Lib.  xv. 

I  do  not  remember  to  have  met  with 
any  contemporary  authority  for  this 
assertion,  nor  is  there  any  provision 
of  this  nature  in  the  decrees  of  the 
Diet  as  given  by  Goldastus  (I.  245)  ; 
but  the  chroniclers  of  the  period  were 
generally  papalists,  and  would  be  apt 


to  omit  recording  anything  which  they 
would  deem  so  creditable  to  their  ad¬ 
versaries.  Yet  that  the  imperialists 
were  no  longer  held  responsible  for 
clerical  irregularities  is  evident  from 
a  letter  written  in  1090  by  Stephen, 
the  papalist  Bishop  of  Halberstadt,  to 
Waltram  of  Magdeburg,  who  was  a 
follower  of  Henry.  In  all  his  violent 
invectives  against  the  imperialists, 
and  in  his  long  catalogue  of  their 
sins,  he  makes  no  allusion  to  priestly 
incontinence,  showing  that  they  must 
have  disavowed  these  irregularities  so 
formally  as  to  leave  no  ground  for  im¬ 
putations  of  complicity  (Dodechini 
Append,  ad  Mar.  Scot.  ann.  1090). 


240 


HILDEBRAND. 


him  he  was  past  the  vanities  of  earthly  triumph.  Could  he  have 
known,  however,  that  the  cause  for  which  he  had  risked  the  integrity 
and  independence  of  the  church  had  thus  received  the  support  of  its 
bitterest  enemies,  and  that  his  unwavering  purpose  had  thus  achieved 
the  moral  victory  of  forcing  his  adversaries  to  range  themselves  under 
his  banner,  his  spirit  would  have  rejoiced,  and  his  confidence  in  the 
ultimate  success  of  the  great  theocratic  system,  for  the  maintenance 
of  which  he  was  thus  expiring  in  exile,  would  have  softened  the 
sorrows  of  a  life  which  closed  in  the  darkness  and  doubt  of  defeat. 


XV. 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


Hildebrand  had  passed  away,  leaving  to  his  successors  the  legacy 
of  inextinguishable  hate  and  unattained  ambition.  Nor  was  the 
reform  for  which  he  had  labored  as  yet  by  any  means  secured  in 
practice,  even  though  his  opponents  had  been  reduced  to  silence  or 
had  been  forced  to  render  a  formal  adhesion  to  the  canons  which  he 
had  proclaimed  so  boldly. 

The  cause  of  asceticism,  it  is  true,  had  gained  many  adherents 
among  the  laity.  Throughout  Germany,  husbands  and  wives  sepa¬ 
rated  from  each  other  in  vast  numbers,  and  devoted  themselves  to 
the  service  of  the  church,  without  taking  vows  or  assuming  ecclesi¬ 
astical  garments ;  while  those  who  were  unmarried  renounced  the 
pleasures  of  the  world,  and,  placing  themselves  under  the  direction 
of  spiritual  guides,  abandoned  themselves  entirely  to  religious  duties. 
To  such  an  extent  did  this  prevail,  that  the  pope  was  applied  to  for 
his  sanction,  which  he  eagerly  granted,  and  the  movement  doubtless 
added  strength  to  the  party  of  reform.1  Yet  but  little  had  thus  far 
been  really  gained  in  purifying  the  church  itself,  notwithstanding  the 
fearful  ordeal  through  which  its  ministers  had  passed. 

As  for  Germany,  the  indomitable  energy  of  Henry  IV.,  unre¬ 
pressed  by  defeat  and  unchilled  by  misfortune,  had  at  length  achieved 
a  virtual  triumph  over  his  banded  enemies.  But  four  bishops  of  the 
Empire — those  of  Wurzburg,  Passau,  Worms,  and  Constance — owned 
allegiance  to  Urban  II.  All  the  other  dioceses  were  filled  by  schis¬ 
matics,  who  rendered  obedience  to  the  anti-pope  Clement.  In  1089 
the  Catholic  or  papalist  princes  offered  to  lay  down  their  arms  and 
do  homage  to  Henry  if  he  would  acknowledge  Urban  and  make  his 
peace  with  the  true  church.  The  emperor,  however,  had  a  pope  who 


1  Bernald.  Constant,  ann.  1091. 

16 


242 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


suited  him,  and  he  entertained  too  lively  a  recollection  of  the  trials 
from  which  he  was  escaping  to  open  the  door  to  a  renewal  of  the 
papal  pretensions,  which  he  had  at  length  successfully  defied,  nor 
would  he  consent  to  stigmatize  his  faithful  prelates  as  schismatics.1 
He  therefore  pursued  his  own  course,  and  Guiberto  of  Ravenna 
enjoyed  the  honors  of  the  popedom,  checkered  by  alternate  vicissi¬ 
tudes  of  good  and  evil  fortune,  until  removed  by  death  in  the  year 
11 00, 2  his  sanctity  attested  by  the  numerous  miracles  wrought  at  his 
tomb,  which  only  needed  the  final  success  of  the  imperialist  cause  to 
enrich  the  calendar  with  a  St.  Clement  in  place  of  a  St.  Gregory 
and  a  St.  Urban.3 

Under  such  auspices,  no  very  zealous  maintenance  of  ecclesiastical 
discipline  was  to  be  expected.  If  Clement’s  sensibilities  were 
humored  by  a  nominal  reprobation  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  he  could 
scarcely  ask  for  more  or  insist  that  Henry  should  rekindle  the  embers 
of  disaffection  by  enforcing  the  odious  rules  wliicli  had  proved  so 
powerful  a  cause  of  trouble  to  their  authors  and  his  enemies.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  it  cannot  surprise  us  to  observe  that  Urban  II.,  in  fol¬ 
lowing  out  the  views  of  his  predecessors,  felt  it  necessary  to  adopt 
measures  even  more  violent  than  those  which  in  Gregory’s  hands  had 
caused  so  much  excitement  and  confusion,  but  whose  inefficiency  was 
confessed  by  the  very  .effort  to  supplement  them.  In  1089,  the  year 
after  his  consecration,  Urban  published  at  the  council  of  Amalfi  a 
decree  by  which,  as  usual,  married  ecclesiastics  were  sentenced  to 
deposition,  and  bishops  who  permitted  such  irregularities  were  sus¬ 
pended  ;  but  where  Gregory  had  been  content  with  ejecting  husbands 
and  wives,  and  with  empowering  secular  rulers  to  enforce  the  edict 
on  recalcitrants,  Urban,  with  a  refinement  of  cruelty,  reduced  the 
unfortunate  women  to  slavery,  and  offered  their  servitude  as  a  bribe 
to  the  nobles  who  should  aid  in  thus  purifying  the  church.4 * * * 8  If  this 


1  Bemald.  Constant,  ann.  1089. 

2  A  monkish  chronicler  professes  to 

record  of  his  own  knowledge  Guiberto’s 

death-bed  remorse  for  the  schism  which 

he  had  been  instrumental  in  causing. 

“  Malens,  ut  ab  ore  ipsius  didicimus, 

apostolici  nomen  nunquam  suscepisse.” 
— Chron  Reg.  S.  Pantaleon.  ann.  1100. 

8  Udalr.  Babenb.  Cod.  Lib.  II.  c.  173. 

*  Eos  qui  in  subdiaconatu  uxoribus 
vacare  voluerint,  ab  omni  sacro  ordine 
removemus,  officio  atque  beneficio  ec- 
clesiae  carere  decernimus.  Quod  si  ab 
episcopo  commoniti  non  se  correx- 


erint,  principibus  licentiam  indul- 
gemus  ut  eorum  feminas  mancipent 
servituti.  Si  vero  episcopi  consense- 
rint  eorum  pravitatibus,  ipsi  officii 
interdictione  mulctentur.  —  Synod. 
Melfit.  ann.  1089,  can.  12. 

The  second  canon  of  the  same  coun¬ 
cil — “  Sacrorum  canonum  instituta  re- 
novantes,  pnecipimus  ut  a  tempore 
subdiaconatus  nulli  liceat  carnale  com- 
mercium  exercere.  Quod  si  deprehen- 
sus  fuerit,  ordinis  sui  periculum  sus- 
tinebit  ” — shows  how  much  more  venial 
was  the  offence  of  promiscuous  licen¬ 
tiousness  than  the  heresy  of  marrriage. 


EFFORTS  OF  URBAN  II. 


243 


infamous  canon  did  not  work  misery  so  wide-spread  as  the  compara¬ 
tively  milder  decretals  of  Gregory,  it  was  because  the  power  of  Urban 
was  circumscribed  by  the  schism,  while  be  was  apparently  himself 
ashamed  or  afraid  to  promulgate  it  in  regions  where  obedience  was 
doubtful.  When  Pibo,  Bishop  of  Toul,  in  the  same  year,  1089,  sent 
an  envoy  to  ask  his  decision  on  various  points  of  discipline,  including 
sacerdotal  marriage  (the  necessity  of  such  inquiry  showing  the  futility 
of  previous  efforts),  Urban  transmitted  the  canons  of  Amalfi  in  response, 
but  omitted  this  provision,  which  well  might  startle  the  honest 
German  mind.1  Perhaps,  on  reflection,  Urban  may  himself  have 
wished  to  disavow  the  atrocity,  for  in  a  subsequent  council,  when 
again  attacking  the  ineradicable  sin,  he  contented  himself  with  simply 
forbidding  all  such  marriages,  and  ordering  all  persons  who  were 
bound  by  orders  or  vows  to  be  separated  from  their  wives  or  concu¬ 
bines,  and  to  be  subjected  to  due  penance.2 

Yet  even  in  those  regions  of  Germany  which  persevered  in  resisting 
Henry  and  in  recognizing  Urban  as  pope,  the  persecution  of  twenty 
years  w’as  still  unsuccessful,  and  the  people  had  apparently  relapsed 
into  condoning  the  wickedness  of  their  pastors.  In  an  assembly  held 
at  Constance  in  1094,  it  was  deemed  necessary  to  impose  a  fine  on 
all  who  should  be  present  at  the  services  performed  by  priests  who 
had  transgressed  the  canons.3  When  this  was  the  case  in  the 
Catholic  provinces,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  in  the  imperialist 
territories  the  thunders  of  Gregory  and  Urban  had  long  since  been 
forgotten,  and  that  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage  were  practised 
with  as  little  scruple  as  ever.  A  fair  illustration,  indeed,  of  the 
amount  of  respect  paid  to  the  rules  of  discipline  is  afforded  by  a  dis¬ 
cussion  on  the  choice  of  a  successor  to  Cosmo  Bishop  of  Prague,  who 
died  in  1098.  Duke  Brecislas,  in  filling  the  vacancy  with  his 
chaplain  Hermann,  endeavored  to  rebut  the  arguments  of  those  who 
objected  to  the  foreign  birth  of  the  appointee  by  urging  that  fact  as 
a  recommendation,  since,  as  a  stranger,  he  would  not  be  pressed 
upon  by  a  crowd  of  kindred  nor  be  burdened  with  the  care  of 
children,  thus  showing  that  the  native  priesthood,  as  a  general  rule, 
were  heads  of  families.4  For  this,  moreover,  they  could  not  plead 


1  Urbani  II.  Epist.  24. 

2  G-ratian.  Dist.  xxvn.  c.  8. 

3  Decret.  Comit.  Constant,  c. 

(Goldast.  I.  246). 


4  Et  quia  hospes  est,  plus  ecclesiaj 
prodest :  non  eum  parentela  exhauriet, 
non  liberorum  cura  aggravabit,  non 
cognatorum  turba  despoliet — Cosmse 
Pragens.  Chron.  Lib.  ill.  ann.  1098. — 
It  should,  however,  be  borne  in  mind 


244 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


ignorance,  for  a  Bohemian  penitential  of  the  period  expressly  pro¬ 
hibits  priests  from  having  companions  whose  society  could  give  rise 
to  suspicion  of  any  kind.1 


At  length  the  duel  which,  for  more  than  thirty  years,  Henry  had 
so  gallantly  fought  with  the  successors  of  St.  Peter  drew  to  a  close. 
Ten  years  of  supremacy  he  had  enjoyed  in  Germany,  and  he  looked 
forward  to  the  peaceful  decline  of  his  unquiet  life,  when  the  treacher¬ 
ous  calm  was  suddenly  disturbed.  Papal  intrigues  in  1093  had 
caused  the  parricidal  revolt  of  his  eldest  born,  the  weak  and  vacil¬ 
lating  Conrad,  whose  early  death  had  then  extinguished  the  memory 
of  his  crime.  That  unnatural  rebellion  had  gained  for  Rome  the 
North  of  Italy ;  and  as  the  emperor’s  second  son,  Henry,  grew  to 
manhood,  he,  too,  was  marked  as  a  fit  instrument  to  pierce  his 
father’s  heart,  and  to  extend  the  domination  of  the  church  by  the 
foulest  wrongs  that  man  can  perpetrate.  The  startling  revolution 
which  in  1105  precipitated  Henry  from  a  throne  to  a  prison,  from 
an  absolute  monarch  to  a  captive  embracing  the  knees  of  his  son 
and  pleading  for  his  wretched  life,  established  forever  the  supremacy 
of  the  papacy  over  Germany.  The  consequent  enforcement  of  the 
law  of  celibacy  became  only  a  question  of  time. 

As  the  excuse  for  the  rebellion  was  the  necessity  of  restoring  the 
empire  to  the  communion  of  Rome,  one  of  the  first  measures  of  the 
conspirators  was  the  convocation  of  a  council  to  be  held  at  Nord- 
hausen,  May  29,  1105,  and  one  of  the  objects  specified  for  its  action 
was  the  expulsion  of  all  married  priests.2  The  council  was  duly  held, 
and  duly  performed  its  work  of  condemning  the  heresy  which  per¬ 
mitted  benefices  to  be  occupied  and  sacred  functions  exercised  by 
those  who  were  involved  in  the  ties  of  matrimony.3  Pope  Paschal 
II.  was  not  remiss  in  his  share  of  the  ceremony,  by  which  he  was 
to  receive  the  fruits  of  his  treacherous  intrigues.  The  following 
year  a  great  council  was  held  at  Guastalla,  where,  after  interminable 


that  Bohemia  had  been  Christianized 
in  871  by  Cyrillus  and  Methodius, 
missionaries  from  Constantinople,  and 
the  national  Slavonic  worship,  founded 
on  the  Greek  faith,  after  many  strug¬ 
gles,  was  not  abolished  until  1094  (see 
Krasinski’s  Reformation  in  Poland, 
London,  1838,  I.  13).  The  attachment 
of  the  race  to  their  ancestral  rites  ex¬ 


plains  the  proneness  of  the  Bohemians 
and  Poles  to  fall  away  into  heresy. 

4  Hofler,  Concilia  Pragensia  p.  xiii. 
(Prag,  1862.) 

2  Annalista  Saxo,  ann.  1105. 

3  Nycholaitarum  quoque  fornicaria 
commixtio  ibidem  est  ab  omnibus 
abdicata. — Chron.  Reg.  S.  Pantaleon. 
ann.  1105.  Cf.  Annal.  Saxo,  ann.  1105. 


BOHEMIA. 


245 


discussions  as  to  the  propriety  of  receiving  without  re-ordination  those 
who  had  compromised  themselves  or  who  had  been  ordained  by  schis¬ 
matics,  he  admitted  into  the  fold  all  the  repentant  ecclesiastics  of  the 
party  of  Henry  IV.1  The  text  of  the  canon  granting  this  boon  to 
the  imperialist  clergy  bears  striking  testimony  to  the  completeness 
of  the  separation  which  had  existed  between  the  Teutonic  and  the 
Roman  churches  in  stating  that  throughout  the  empire  scarce  any 
Catholic  ecclesiastics  were  to  be  found.2  It  scarcely  needed  the 
declaration  which  Paschal  made  in  1107  at  the  synod  of  Troyes, 
condemning  married  priests  to  degradation  and  deprivation,3  to  show 
that  the  doctrines  of  Damiani  and  Hildebrand  were  thenceforth  to 
be  the  law  of  the  empire. 

The  question  thus  was  definitely  settled  in  prohibiting  the  priests 
of  Germany  from  marrying  or  from  retaining  the  wives  whom  they 
had  taken  previous  to  ordination.  It  was  settled,  indeed,  in  the  rolls 
of  parchment  which  recorded  the  decrees  of  councils  and  the  trading 
bargains  of  pope  and  kaiser,  yet  the  perennial  struggle  continued, 
and  the  parchment  roll  for  yet  awhile  was  powerless  before  the  pas¬ 
sions  of  man,  who  did  not  cease  to  be  man  because  his  crown  was 
shaven  and  his  shoulders  wore  cope  and  stole. 

Cosmo,  who  was  Dean  of  Prague,  wTho  had  been  bred  to  the  church, 
and  had  been  promoted  to  the  priesthood  in  1099,  chronicles,  in  1118, 
the  death  of  Boseteha,  his  wife,  in  terms  which  show  that  no  separa¬ 
tion  had  ever  occurred  between  them ;  and  five  years  later  he  alludes 
to  his  son  Henry  in  a  manner  to  indicate  that  there  was  no  irregu¬ 
larity  in  such  relationship,  nor  aught  that  would  cause  him  to  forfeit 
the  respect  of  his  contemporaries  in  acknowledging  it.4  Even  more 
to  the  point  is  the  case  of  a  pious  priest,  his  friend,  who,  on  the  death 
of  his  wife  (“  presbytera”),  made  a  vow  that  he  would  have  no  further 
intercourse  with  women.  Cosmo  relates  that  the  unaccustomed  dep¬ 
rivation  proved  harder  than  he  had  expected,  and  that  for  some  years 
he  was  tortured  with  burning  temptation.  Finding  at  length  that 
his  resolution  was  giving  way,  he  resolved  to  imitate  St.  Benedict  in 


1  Compare  Bernaldi  Constant,  de 
Reordinatione  vitanda  etc. 

2  Quod  cum  dolore  dicimus,  vix  pauci 

sacerdotes  aut  clerici  Catholici  in  tanta 
terrarum  latitudine  reperiantur.  — 

Annal.  Saxo,  ann.  1106. 


3  Concil.  Trecens.  ann.  1107  c.  2 
(Pertz,  Legurn  T.  II.  P.  ii.  p.  181). 

4  Cosmse  Pragensis  Chron.  Lib.  in. 
ann.  1118,  1123. 

Rerum  cunctarum  comes  indimota  mearum 
Bis  Februi  quinis  obiit  Boseteha  kalendis. 


246 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


conquering  the  flesh ;  and  having  no  suitable  solitude  for  the  execu¬ 
tion  of  his  purpose,  he  took  a  handful  of  nettles  to  his  chamber, 
where,  casting  off  his  garments,  he  thrashed  himself  so  unmercifully 
that  for  three  days  he  lay  moribund.  Then  he  hung  the  nettles  in  a 
conspicuous  position  on  his  wall,  that  he  might  always  have  before 
his  eyes  so  significant  a  memento  and  warning.1  Cosmo’s  admiration 
for  this,  as  a  rare  and  almost  incredible  exhibition  of  priestly  virtue 
and  fortitude,  shows  how  few  were  capable  of  even  remaining  wid¬ 
owers,  while  the  whole  story  proves  that  not  only  the  clergy  were 
free  to  marry,  but  also  that  it  was  only  the  voluntary  vow  that  pre¬ 
vented  a  second  marriage.  At  the  close  of  the  century  Pietro,  Car¬ 
dinal  of  Santa  Maria  in  Via  Lata,  sent  as  Legate  to  Bohemia  by 
Celestin  III.,  was  much  scandalized  at  this  state  of  affairs;  and  when 
a  number  of  postulants  for  holy  orders  were  assembled  in  the  church 
of  St.  Vitus  at  Prague,  before  ordaining  them  he  pronounced  a  dis¬ 
course  on  the  subject  of  celibacy  and  demanded  that  they  should  all 
swear  to  preserve  continence.  Thereupon  all  the  priests  who  were 
present  rushed  forward  and  urged  them  not  to  assume  an  obligation 
hitherto  unknown,  and  when  the  Cardinal  ordered  the  Archdeacon 
to  repress  their  somewhat  active  demonstrations,  they  proceeded  to 
pummel  that  unhappy  official  and  the  tumult  was  with  difficulty 
repressed  by  the  soldiery  who  were  summoned.  The  legate  sentenced 
some  of  the  rioters  to  be  starved  to  death  in  prison  and  the  rest  to 
be  exiled — a  wholesome  severity  which  broke  the  spirit  of  the 
Bohemian  priesthood  and  led  to  the  introduction  of  celibacy.2 

That  this  state  of  things  was  not  confined  to  the  wild  Bohemian 
Marches,  but  obtained  throughout  Germany  in  general,  is  sufficiently 
attested  by  the  fact  that  when  Innocent  II.  was  driven  out  of  Home 
by  the  anti-pope  Anaclet,  and  was  wandering  throughout  Europe 
begging  recognition,  he  held,  in  conjunction  with  the  Emperor 
Lothair,  in  1131,  a  council  at  Liege,  where  he  procured  the  adoption 
of  a  canon  prohibiting  priestly  marriage  or  attendance  on  the  mass 
of  married  priests.  Not  only  does  the  necessity  of  this  fresh  legis¬ 
lation  show  that  previous  enactments  had  become  obsolete,  but  the 
manner  in  which  these  proceedings  are  referred  to  by  the  chroniclers 
plainly  indicates  that  it  took  the  Teutonic  mind  somewhat  by  sur- 


1  Ibid.  Lib.  in.  ann.  1125  (Mencken.  Script.  Rer.  German,  in.  1799). 

2  Dubravii  Hist.  Bohem.  Lib.  xiv.  (Ed.  1687,  pp.  380-1.) 


GERMANY. 


247 


prise,  and  that  the  efforts  of  Gregory  and  Urban  had  not  only 
remained  without  result,  but  had  become  absolutely  forgotten.1 

If  these  proceedings  of  Innocent  had  any  effect,  it  was  only  to 
make  matters  worse.  The  pious  Rupert,  Abbot  of  Duits,  writing  a 
few  years  later,  deplores  the  immorality  of  the  priesthood,  who  not 
only  entered  into  forbidden  marriages,  but,  knowing  them  to  be 
illegal,  had  no  scruple  in  multiplying  the  tie,  considering  it  to  be, 
at  their  pleasure,  devoid  of  all  binding  force.2  And  in  Liege  itself, 
where  Innocent  had  held  his  council,  Bishop  Albero,  whose  episco¬ 
pate  commenced  in  1135,  permitted  his  priests  to  celebrate  their 
marriages  openly,  so  that,  as  we  are  told,  the  citizens  rather  pre¬ 
ferred  to  give  their  daughters  in  marriage  to  them  than  to  laymen; 
and  the  na'ive  remark  of  the  chronicler  that  the  clergy  gave  up 
keeping  concubines  in  secret  and  took  wives  openly  would  seem  to 
show  that  the  cause  of  morality  had  not  gained  during  the  temporary 
restriction  imposed  by  Innocent.3  It  was  not  to  much  purpose  that 
Albero  was  deprived  of  his  see  for  this  laxity,  for  the  same  state  of 
things  continued.  No  province  of  Germany  was  more  orthodox  than 
Salzburg,  yet  the  archdeacon  of  the  archiepiscopal  church  there, 
writing  in  1175,  bewails  the  complete  demoralization  of  his  clergy, 
whom  he  was  utterly  unable  to  reform.  Priests  who  were  content 
with  their  own  wives  and  did  not  take  those  of  other  men  were 
reputed  virtuous  and  holy ;  and  he  complains  that  in  his  own  archi- 
diaconate  he  was  powerless  to  prevent  the  ordination  and  ministry  of 
the  sons  of  priests,  even  while  they  were  living  in  open  adultery 
with  women  whom  they  had  taken  from  their  husbands.4  How  little 
sympathy,  indeed,  all  efforts  to  enforce  the  rule  called  forth  is  in¬ 
structively  shown  by  the  wondering  contempt  with  which  a  writer, 
strictly  papalist  in  his  tendencies,  comments  upon  the  indiscreet 


1  Statuitur  et  hoc  semper  memora- 
bile,  secundum  decreta  canonum,  pres- 
byteros  parochianos  castos  et  sine 
uxoribus  esse  debere :  uxorati  vero 
presbyteri  missam  a  nemine  audien- 
dam  esse.  —  Annal.  Bosoviens.  ann. 
1131. 

Statuitur  quoque  ab  omnibus,  se¬ 
cundum  decreta  canonum,  illud  anti¬ 
quum,  quod  semper  erit  innovandum, 
presbyteros  castos  et  sine  uxoribus 
esse,  missam  autem  uxorati  presbyteri 
neminem  audire  debere. — Chron.  San- 
petrin.  Erfurt,  ann.  1131. 

Statuitur  etiam  hoc  semper  memora- 


bile,  per  decreta  canonum  presbyteros 
parrochianos  castos  et  sine  uxoribus 
esse  debere,  uxorati  vero  presbyteri 
missam  a  nemine  audiendam  esse. — 
Chron.  Pegaviens.  Continuat.  ann. 
1131. 

2  Ruperti  Tuitens.  Comment,  in 
Apocalyps.  Lib.  ii.  cap.  ii. 

3  Hist.  Monast.  S.  Laurent.  Leodiens. 
Lib.  v.  c.  39  (Martene  Ampliss. 
Collect.  IV.  1005). 

4  Henrici  Salisbury.  Archidiac.  de 
Calam.  Eccles.  Salisburg.  cap.  ix. 


248 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


reformatory  zeal  of  Meinhard,  Archbishop  of  Treves.  Elevated  to 
this  lofty  dignity  in  1128,  he  at  once  undertook  to  force  his  clergy 
to  obey  the  rule  by  the  most  stringent  measures,  and  speedily  became 
so  odious  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  his  bishopric  within  the  year; 
and  the  chronicler  who  tells  the  story  has  only  words  of  reprobation 
for  the  unfortunate  prelate.1  Even  as  late  as  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century,  a  chronicler  of  the  popes,  writing  in  southern  Germany, 
calls  Gregory  VII.  an  enforcer  of  impossibilities — “praeceptor  im- 
possibilium'’ — because  he  had  endeavored  to  make  good  the  rule  of 
celibacy ; 2  and  a  council  of  Ratisbon,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  while 
lamenting  the  fact  that  there  were  few  priests  who  did  not  openly 
keep  their  concubines  and  children  in  their  houses,  quotes  the  canon 
of  Hildebrand  forbidding  the  laity  to  attend  at  the  ministrations  of 
such  persons,  but  without  venturing  to  hint  at  its  enforcement.3 

Hungary  had  been  Christianized  at  a  time  when  the  obligation  of 
celibacy  was  but  lightly  regarded,  though  it  had  not  as  yet  become 
obsolete.  In  reducing  the  dreaded  and  barbarous  Majjars  to  civili¬ 
zation,  the  managers  of  the  movement  might  well  smooth  the  path 
and  interpose  as  few  obstacles  as  possible  to  the  attainment  of  so 
desirable  a  consummation.  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  restrictions 
on  marriage,  as  applied  to  the  priesthood,  were  lightly  passed  over, 
and,  not  being  insisted  on,  were  disregarded  by  all  parties.  Even 
the  decretals  of  Nicholas  II.  and  the  fulminations  of  Gregory  VII. 
appear  to  have  never  penetrated  into  the  kingdom  of  St.  Stephen, 
for  sacerdotal  celibacy  seems  to  have  been  unknown  among  the 
Hungarians  until  the  close  of  the  century.  The  first  allusion  to  it 
occurs  in  the  synod  of  Zabolcs,  held  in  1092,  under  the  auspices  of 
St.  Ladislas  II.,  and  is  of  a  nature  to  show  not  only  that  it  was  an 
innovation  on  established  usages,  but  also  that  the  subject  required 
tender  handling  to  reconcile  it  to  the  weakness  of  undisciplined 
human  nature.  After  the  bitter  denunciations  and  cruelly  harsh 


1  “  Deinde  dum  nimio  zelo  recti- 
tudinis  de  incontinentia  clericorum 
multa  saeve  disponeret,  sine  condi- 
mento  discrecionis,  magnam  sibi  com- 
paravit  invidiam,  et  quam  nec  dici  fas 
est,  acquisivit  infamiam.” — He  went 
to  Italy,  seeking  aid  from  Honorius 
II.,  but  was  captured  by  Conrad  the 
Swabian,  the  rival  of  the  Emperor 
Lothair,  and  died  of  affliction  in  his 


prison  at  Parma,  October  1st,  1130. 
(Gest.  Trevirorum  Continuat.  c.  27, 
28.) 

2  Anon.  Zwetlensis  Hist.  Roman. 
Pontif.  No.  CLXI.  (Pez,  T.  I.  P.  iii. 

p.  3So.) 

3  Concil.  Ratisbonens.  saec.  XIII.  c. 
v.  (Printed  by  Schneller,  Straubing, 

1785.) 


HUNGARY. 


249 


measures  which  the  popes  had  been  promulgating  for  nearly  half  a 
century,  there  is  an  impressive  contrast  in  the  mildness  with  which 
the  Hungarian  church  offered  indulgence  to  those  legitimately  united 
to  a  first  wife,  until  the  Holy  See  could  be  consulted  for  a  definitive 
decision;1  and  though  marriages  with  second  wives,  widows,  or 
divorced  women  were  pronounced  null  and  void,  the  disposition  to 
evade  a  direct  meeting  of  the  question  is  manifested  in  a  regulation 
which  provided  that  if  a  priest  united  himself  to  his  female  slave 
“uxoris  in  locum,”  the  woman  should  be  sold;  but  if  he  refused  to 
part  with  her,  he  was  simply  to  pay  her  price  to  the  bishop.2 
Whether  or  not  the  pope’s  decision  w~as  actually  sought,  we  have  no 
means  of  knowing ;  if  it  was,  his  inevitable  verdict  received  little 
respect,  for  the  Synod  of  Gran,  held  about  the  year  1099  by  the 
Primate  Seraphin  of  Gran,  only  ventured  to  recommend  moderation 
to  married  priests,  while  its  endeavor  to  enforce  the  rule  prohibiting 
marriage  after  the  assumption  of  orders  shows  how  utterly  the  recog¬ 
nized  discipline  of  the  church  was  neglected.  The  consent  of  wives 
was  also  required  before  married  priests  could  be  elevated  to  the 
episcopate,  and  after  consecration  separation  was  strictly  enjoined, 
affording  still  further  evidence  of  the  laxity  allowed  to  the  other 
grades.  The  iteration  of  the  rules  respecting  digami  and  marriage 
with  widows  also  indicates  how  difficult  was  the  effort  to  resuscitate 
those  well-known  regulations,  although  they  were  universally  admitted 
to  be  binding  on  all  ecclesiastics.3 

King  Coloman,  whose  reign  extended  from  1095  to  1114,  has  the 
credit  of  being  the  first  who  definitely  enjoined  immaculate  purity 
on  the  Hungarian  priesthood.  His  laws,  as  collected  by  Alberic, 
have  no  dates,  and  therefore  we  are  unable  to  affix  precise  epochs  to 
them;  but  his  legislation  on  the  subject  appears  to  have  been  pro¬ 
gressive,  for  wTe  find  edicts  containing  injunctions  respecting  digami 
and  irregular  unions  in  terms  which  indicate  that  single  marriages 
were  not  interfered  with ;  and  these  may  reasonably  be  deemed  earlier 


1  Presbyteris  autem  qui  prima  et 
legitima  duxere  conjugia,  indulgentia 
ad  tempus  datur,  propter  vinculum 
pacis  et  unitatem  Spiritus  Sancti,  quo- 
usque  nobis  in  boc  Domini  Apostolici 
paternitas  consilietur. — Synod.  Zabolcs 
ann.  1092  c.  3,  or  Decret.  St.  Ladisl. 
Lib.  i.  c.  3.  (Batthyani,  I.  434-5.) 

2  Synod.  Zabolcs  c.  1,  2. — Any  pre¬ 


late  assenting  to  such  illicit  unions, 
and  not  insisting  on  immediate  sepa¬ 
ration,  was  punishable  to  a  reasonable 
extent  (Ibid.  c.  4). 

3  Synod.  Strigonens.  n.  (Batthyani, 
II.  121-8).  Peterffy’s  emendation  of 
“voluerint”  for  “  noluerint,”  in  the 
clause  respecting  digami ,  can  hardly  be 
questioned. 


250 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


than  other  laws  which  formally  prohibit  the  elevation  to  the  diaconate 
of  an  unmarried  man  without  exacting  from  him  a  vow  of  continence, 
or  of  a  married  man  without  the  consent  of  his  wTife.  The  import  of 
this  latter  condition  is  explained  by  another  law,  wThich  provided  that 
no  married  man  should  officiate  at  the  altar  unless  his  wife  professed 
continence,  and  was  furnished  by  her  husband  with  the  means  of 
dwelling  apart  from  him.1  As  these  stringent  regulations  form  part 
of  the  canons  of  a  council  held  by  Archbishop  Seraphin  about  the 
year  1109, 2  they  were  probably  borrowed  from  that  council  by  Colo- 
man,  and  incorporated  into  his  laws  at  a  period  somewhat  later. 

I  have  not  met  with  any  indications  of  the  results  of  the  legislation 
which  thus  combined  the  influence  of  the  temporal  and  ecclesiastical 
authorities.  That  it  effected  little,  however,  is  apparent  from  the 
evidence  afforded  by  Dalmatia,  at  that  time  a  province  of  Hungary. 
Shortly  before  it  lost  its  independence,  its  duke,  Dimitri,  resolved  to 
assume  the  crown  of  royalty,  and  purchased  the  assent  of  Gregory 
VII.  at  the  price  of  acknowledging  him  as  feudal  superior.  Gregory 
took  advantage  of  Dimitri’s  aspirations  to  further  the  plans  of  reform, 
of  which  he  never  lost  sight ;  for,  in  the  coronation  oath  taken  in 
10T6  before  Gebizo,  the  papal  legate,  the  new  king  swore  that  he 
would  take  such  measures  as  would  insure  the  chastity  of  all  ecclesi¬ 
astics,  from  the  bishop  to  the  subdeacon.3  The  new  dynasty  did  not 
last  long,  for  before  the  end  of  the  century  St.  Ladislas  united  the 
province  of  Dalmatia  to  the  kingdom  of  Hungary ;  but  neither  the 
oath  of  Dimitri,  the  laws  of  Coloman,  nor  the  canons  of  the  national 
councils  succeeded  in  eradicating  the  custom  of  priestly  marriage. 
When  we  find,  in  1185,  Urban  III.  in  approving  the  acts  of  the 
synod  of  Spalatro,  graciously  expressing  his  approbation  of  its  pro¬ 
hibiting  the  marriage  of  priests,  and  desiring  that  the  injunction 
should  be  extended  so  as  to  include  the  diaconate,4  we  see  that  mar¬ 
riage  must  have  been  openly  enjoyed  by  all  ranks,  that  the  synod 
had  not  ventured  to  include  in  the  restriction  any  bu$  the  highest 
order,  and  that  Urban  himself  did  not  undertake  to  apply  the  rule  to 
subdeacons,  although  they  had  been  specially  included  in  Dimitri’s 
oath.  Yet  still  pope  and  synod  labored  in  vain,  for  fourteen  years 
later,  in  1199,  another  national  council  complained  that  priests  k§pt 


3  Batthyani,  I.  431. 

4  Epist.  Urbani  apud  Batthyani,  II. 
274. 


1  Decret.  Coloman.  cap.  41,  42, 

Comp.  cap.  27  and  37. 

2  Synod.  Yencellina,  circa  1109. 


POLAND. 


251 


both  wives  and  benefices.  It  therefore  commanded  that  those  who 
indulged  in  this  species  of  adultery  should  either  dismiss  their  partners 
in  guilt,  and  undergo  due  penance,  or  else  should  give  up  their 
churches  ;  while  no  married  man  should  be  admitted  to  the  diaconate, 
unless  his  wdfe  would  take  a  vowT  of  continence  before  the  bishop.1 
Even  yet,  however,  the  subdiaconate  is  not  alluded  to,  although  the 
legates  who  presided  over  the  council  were  those  of  Innocent  III. 

Of  how  little  avail  were  these  efforts  is  shown  by  the  national 
council  held  at  Vienna  as  late  as  1267,  by  Cardinal  Guido,  legate  of 
Clement  IV.  It  was  still  found  necessary  to  order  the  deprivation 
of  priests  and  deacons  who  persisted  in  retaining  their  wives  ;  while 
the  special  clauses  respecting  those  who  married  after  taking  orders 
prove  that  such  unions  were  frequent  enough  to  require  tender  con¬ 
sideration  in  removing  the  evil.  The  subdiaconate,  also,  was  declared 
liable  to  the  same  regulations,  but  the  resistance  of  the  members  of 
that  order  was  probably  stubborn,  for  the  canons  were  suspended  in 
their  favor  until  further  instructions  should  be  received  from  the 
pope.2 

Poland  was  equally  remiss  in  enforcing  the  canons  on  her  clergy. 
The  leaning  of  the  Slavonic  races  towards  the  Greek  church  ren¬ 
dered  them,  in  fact,  peculiarly  intractable,  and  marriage  was  com¬ 
monly  practised  by  the  clergy  at  least  until  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century.3  At  length  the  efforts  of  Rome  were  extended  to  that 
distant  region,  and  in  1197  the  papal  legate,  Cardinal  Peter  of  Capua, 
held  the  synod  of  Lanciski,  wThen  the  priests  were  peremptorily 
ordered  to  dismiss  their  wives  and  concubines,  who,  in  the  words  of 
the  historian,  were  at  that  time  universally  and  openly  kept.4  The 
result  of  this  seems  to  have  amounted  to  little,  for  in  1207  we  find 
Innocent  III.  sharply  reproving  the  bishops  of  the  province  of 
Gnesen  because  married  men  were  publicly  admitted  to  ecclesi¬ 
astical  dignities,  and  canons  took  no  shame  in  the  families  growing 
up  around  them.  The  children  of  priests  were  brought  up  to  the 
sacred  profession  of  their  fathers,  assisted  them  in  their  ministrations, 
and  succeeded  to  their  benefices.  Whether  or  not  the  other  disorders 


1  Synod.  Dalmatise  ann.  1199 
(Batthyani,  II.  289-90). 

2  Concil.  Vienn.  ann.  1267  (Bat¬ 
thyani,  II.  415-17). 

3  Complures  ea  tempestate  sacerdotes 


uxoribus  velut  jure  legitimo  utebantur. 
— Dlugosz,  ad  ann.  1197  (apud  Kra- 
sinski,  I.  52). 

4  Staravolsc.  Concil.  Epit.  ap.  Har- 
duin.  T.  YI.  P.  ii.  p.  1937. 


252 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


which  Innocent  designated  as  infecting  the  churches  were  the  result 
of  the  carnal  affections  which  thus  superseded  the  spiritual  we  may 
fairly  doubt,  in  view  of  the  abuses  still  prevailing  in  more  favored 
regions.1  The  effort  was  continued,  and  was  apparently  at  length 
successful,  at  least  in  the  western  portions  of  the  Polish  church,  for 
at  the  council  of  Breslau,  held  in  12T9,  there  is  no  mention  of 
wives,  and  the  constitution  of  Guido,  legate  of  Clement  IV.  ,  is 
quoted,  depriving  of  benefices  those  who  openly  kept  concubines.2 

The  church  of  Sweden  was  no  purer  than  its  neighbors.  That 
the  rule  was  recognized  there  at  a  tolerably  early  period  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  when  the  people  of  Scania,  about  the  year  1180,  revolted 
against  the  exactions  of  Waldemar  I.  of  Denmark,  they  demanded  to 
be  released  from  the  oppression  of  tithes  and  that  the  clergy  should 
be  married.  Singularly  enough,  the  clerks  stood  by  their  bishop, 
Absalom,  when  he  laid  an  interdict  on  the  province,  and  the  arms  of 
Waldemar  speedily  subdued  the  revolt.3  Not  much,  however,  was 
gained  for  church  discipline  by  this.  In  1204,  the  Archbishop  of 
Lunden  reported  to  Innocent  III.  that  he  had  used  every  endeavor 
to  enforce  the  canons  and  had  brought  many  of  his  priests  to  observe 
chastity,  but  that  there  still  were  many  who  persisted  in  retaining 
their  women,  whom  they  treated  as  though  they  were  legitimate 
wives,  with  fidelity  and  conjugal  affection.  To  this  Innocent  replied 
that  the  recalcitrants  must  be  coerced  by  suspension,  and,  if  necessary, 
by  deprivation  of  benefice.4  How  little  result  this  achieved  is  evident 
when  we  find  the  archbishop  again  writing  to  Innocent  III.  com¬ 
plaining  that  the  Swedish  priests  persisted  in  living  with  their  wives, 
and  that  they  moreover  claimed  to  have  a  papal  dispensation  per¬ 
mitting  it.  Innocent,  in  reply,  cautiously  abstained  from  pronouncing 
an  opinion  as  to  the  validity  of  these  pretensions  until  he  should  have 
an  opportunity  of  examining  the  document  to  which  they  appealed.5 
The  efforts  at  this  time  were  fruitless,  for,  in  1248,  we  find  the 
Cardinal  of  St.  Sabina  as  legate  of  Innocent  IV.  holding  a  council 
at  Schening,  of  which  the  principal  object  was  to  reform  these  abuses, 
and  so  firmly  were  they  established,  that  the  Swedes  were  considered 


1  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  Lib.  3  Saxo.  Grammat.  Hist.  Dan.  Lib. 

ix.  Epist.  235.  xv.  (Ed.  1576,  p.  327). 

2  Concil.  Vratislaviens.  ann.  1279,  c.  *  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  vi.  198 

iii.  (Hartzheim  III.  808).  5  lnnocent  m  Regest.  xvl  118. 


SWEDEN  —  DENMARK. 


253 


as  schismatics  of  the  Greek  church,  in  consequence  of  the  marriage 
of  their  priests.  The  council  supported  by  the  royal  power,  succeeded 
in  forcing  the  Swedish  ecclesiastics  to  give  up  their  wives,  by  a  liberal 
use  of  all  the  punishments  then  in  vogue,  together  with  the  significant 
threat  of  abandoning  them  to  the  tender  mercies  of  the  secular 
tribunals.1 


In  Denmark  and  along  the  northern  coasts  of  Germany,  there  was 
equal  delay  in  enforcing  the  canon  of  celibacy.  It  is  suggestive  of 
some  powerful  intercession  in  favor  of  the  married  clergy  when  we 
see  Paschal  II.,  in  1117,  writing  to  the  King  of  Denmark  that  the 
rule  was  imperative,  and  that  he  could  admit  of  no  exceptions  to  it.2 
His  insistance,  however,  was  of  little  avail.  In  1266,  Cardinal 
Guido,  legate  of  Clement  IV.,  held  a  council  at  Bremen,  where  he 
was  obliged  to  take  rigorous  measures  to  put  an  end  to  this  Nicolitan 
heresy.  All  married  priests,  deacons,  and  subdeacons  were  pro¬ 
nounced  incapable  of  holding  any  ecclesiastical  office  whatever. 
Children  born  of  such  unions  were  declared  infamous,  and  incapable 
of  inheritance,  and  any  property  received  by  gift  or  otherwise  from 
their  fathers  was  confiscated.  Those  who  permitted  their  daughters, 
sisters,  or  other  female  relatives  to  contract  such  marriages,  or  gave 
them  up  in  concubinage  to  priests,  were  excluded  from  the  church. 
That  a  previous  struggle  had  taken  place  on  the  subject  is  evident 
from  the  penalties  threatened  against  the  prelates  who  were  in  the 
habit  of  deriving  a  revenue  from  the  protection  of  these  irregularities, 
and  from  an  allusion  to  the  armed  resistance,  made  by  the  married 
and  concubinary  priests  with  their  friends,  to  all  efforts  to  check 
their  scandalous  conduct.3 

In  Friesland,  too,  the  efforts  of  the  sacerdotalists  were  long  set  at 
naught.  In  1219  Emo,  Abbot  of  Wittewerum,  describing  the  dis¬ 
astrous  inundations  which  afflicted  his  country,  considers  them  as  a 
punishment  sent  to  chastise  the  vices  of  the  land,  and  among  the 
disorders  which  were  peculiarly  obnoxious  to  the  wrath  of  God  he 
enumerates  the  public  marriage  of  the  priests,  the  hereditary  trans¬ 
mission  of  benefices,  and  the  testamentary  provision  made  by  ecclesi- 


1  Prima  intentio  et  cura  Cardinalis 
Sabinensis  in  hoc  concilio  erat  revo- 
care  Suecos  et  Gothos  a  schismate 
Graacorum,  in  quo  presbyteri  et  sacer- 
dotes,  ductis  publicis  uxoribus  con- 


sensisse  videbantur. — Harduin.  VII. 
423. 

2  Jaffe,  Regesta,  p.  515-6. — Paschal. 
II.  Epist.  497. 

3  Concil.  Bremens.  ann.  1266  (Hartz- 
heim  IV.  580). 


254 


CENTRAL  EUROPE. 


astics  for  their  children  out  of  the  property  which  should  accrue  to 
the  church  ;  while  his  references  to  the  canon  law  inhibiting  these 
practices,  show  that  these  transgressions  were  not  excusable  through 
ignorance.1  The  warning  was  unheeded,  for  Abbot  Emo  alludes 
incidentally,  on  various  subsequent  occasions,  to  the  hereditary  trans¬ 
mission  of  several  deaneries  as  a  matter  of  course.2  The  deans  in 
Friesland  were  ecclesiastics  of  high  position,  each  having  six  or  more 
parishes  under  his  jurisdiction,  which  he  governed  under  legatine 
power  from  the  Bishop  of  Munster.  When,  in  1271,  the  people  rose 
against  them,  exasperated  by  their  intolerable  exactions,  in  some 
temporary  truce  the  deans  gave  their  children  as  hostages ;  and 
wThen,  after  their  expulsion,  Gerard  of  Munster  came  to  their  assist¬ 
ance  by  excommunicating  the  rebels,  the  latter  defended  the  move¬ 
ment  by  the  argument  that  the  deans  had  violated  the  laws  of  the 
church  by  handing  down  their  positions  from  father  to  son,  and  that 
each  generation  imitated  the  incontinence  of  its  predecessor.3  Hilde¬ 
brand  might  have  applauded  this  reasoning,  but  his  days  were  past. 
The  church  by  this  time  had  gained  the  position  to  which  it  had 
aspired,  and  no  longer  invoked  secular  assistance  to  enforce  its  laws. 
Even  Abbot  Menco,  while  admitting  the  validity  of  the  popular 
argument,  claimed  that  such  questions  were  reserved  for  the  decision 
of  the  church  alone,  and  that  the  people  must  not  interfere. 


After  thus  marking  the  slow  progress  of  the  Hildebrandine  move¬ 
ment  in  these  frontier  lands  of  Christendom,  let  us  see  what  efforts 
were  required  to  establish  the  reform  in  regions  less  remote. 


1  Emonis  Chron.  ann.  1219. 

2  “  Eodem  tempore  defunctus  est 
praefatus  decanus  (Herbrandus)  pos¬ 
sessor  ecclesiae  in  Husquert,  tertius 

heres  illius  nominis,  relicto  parvulo 
ejusdem  nominis.”  (Emonis  Chron. 
ann.  1231.) — and  Emo  alludes  to  him 
as  “  honesto  viro  Herbrando.” 


“  Obiit  Geyco  decanus  in  Firmetium 
vir  per  omnia  saecularibus  artibus 
idoneus,  et  bene  religiosus  et  obsequi- 
osus.  Successit  ei  Sicco,  quartus  a 
proavo  Sigrepo.” — Ibid.  ann.  1233. 

3  Menconis  Chron.  Werens.  ann. 
1271. 


XVI. 


FRANCE. 


Gregory  VII.  had  not  been  so  engrossed  in  his  quarrels  with  the 
Empire  as  to  neglect  the  prosecution  of  his  favorite  schemes  of  reform 
elsewhere.  If  he  displayed  somewhat  less  of  energy  and  zeal  in 
dealing  with  the  ecclesiastical  foibles  of  other  countries,  it  was  per¬ 
haps  because  the  political  complications  which  gave  a  special  zest  to 
his  efforts  in  Germany  were  wanting,  and  because  there  was  no 
organized  resistance  supported  by  the  temporal  authorities.  Yet  the 
inertia  of  passive  non-compliance  long  rendered  his  endeavors  and 
those  of  his  successors  equally  nugatory. 

As  early  as  1056  we  find  Victor  II.,  by  means  of  his  vicars  at  the 
council  of  Toulouse,  enjoining  on  the  priesthood  separation  from  their 
wives,  under  penalty  of  excommunication  and  deprivation  of  function 
and  benefice.1  This  was  followed  up  in  1060  by  Nicholas  II.,  who 
sought  through  his  envoys  to  enforce  the  observance  of  his  decretals 
on  celibacy  in  France,  and  under  the  presidency  of  his  legate  the 
council  of  Tours  in  that  year  adopted  a  canon  of  the  most  decided 
character.  All  who,  since  the  promulgation  of  the  decretal  of  1060, 
had  continued  in  the  performance  of  their  sacred  functions  while  still 
preserving  relations  with  their  wives  and  concubines  were  deprived 
of  their  grades  without  hope  of  restoration  ;  and  the  same  irrevocable 
penalty  was  denounced  against  those  who  in  the  future  should 
endeavor  to  combine  the  incompatible  duties  of  husband  and  minister 
of  Christ.2 

In  what  spirit  these  threats  and  injunctions  were  likely  to  be 
received  may  be  gathered  from  an  incident  which  occurred,  probably 
about  this  time.  A  French  bishop,  as  in  duty  bound,  excommuni¬ 
cated  one  of  his  deacons  for  marrying.  The  clergy  of  the  diocese, 


Concil.  Tolosan.  ann.  1056  can.  vii. 


2  Concil.  Turon.  ann.  1060  c.  6. 


256 


FRANCE. 


keen  to  appreciate  the  prospect  of  future  trouble,  rallied  around  their 
persecuted  brother,  and  rose  in  open  rebellion  against  the  prelate. 
The  latter,  apparently,  was  unable  to  maintain  his  position,  and  the 
matter  was  referred  for  adjudication  to  the  celebrated  Berenger  of 
Tours.  Although,  in  view  of  the  papal  jurisprudence  of  the  period, 
the  bishop  would  seem  to  have  acted  with  leniency,  yet  Berenger 
blamed  both  parties  for  their  precipitancy  and  quarrelsome  humor, 
and  decided  that  the  excommunication  of  a  deacon  for  marrying  was 
contrary  to  the  canons,  unless  rendered  unavoidable  by  the  contumacy 
of  the  offender.1 

Even  more  significant  was  the  scene  which  occurred  in  10T4  in 
the  council  of  Paris,  where  the  holy  St.  Gauthier,  Abbot  of  Pon- 
thoise,  undertook  to  sustain  the  decretal  by  which  Gregory  VII. 
prohibited  attendance  on  the  masses  of  married  and  concubinary 
priests.  The  assembly  manifested  its  disapprobation  of  the  measure 
in  a  manner  so  energetic  that  its  unlucky  advocate,  after  being  furi¬ 
ously  berated  and  soundly  pummelled,  was  glad  to  escape  with  his 
life  from  the  hands  of  his  indignant  brethren.2 

When  such  was  the  spirit  of  the  ecclesiastical  body,  there  was 
little  to  be  expected  from  any  internal  attempt  at  reform.  At  the 
stormy  synod  of  Poitiers,  in  1078,  the  papal  legate,  Hugh,  Bishop 
of  Die,  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  adoption  of  a  canon  which  threat¬ 
ened  with  excommunication  all  who  should  knowingly  listen  to  the 
mass  of  a  concubinary  or  simoniacal  priest,3  but  this  seems  to  have 
met  with  little  response.  Coercion  from  without  was  evidently  requi¬ 
site,  and  in  this  case,  as  we  have  seen,  Gregory  did  not  shrink  from 
subjecting  the  church  to  the  temporal  power.  In  Normandy,  for 
instance,  a  synod  held  at  Lisieux  in  1055  had  commanded  the  degra¬ 
dation  of  priests  who  resided  with  wives  or  concubines.  This  was, 
of  course,  ineffective,  and  in  1072  John,  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  held 
a  council  in  his  cathedral  city,  where  he  renewed  that  canon  in  terms 
which  show  how  completely  all  orders  and  dignitaries  were  habitually 
liable  to  its  penalties.4  The  Norman  clergy  were  not  disposed  to 


1  Ceterum,  quod  excommunicavit 
diaconum  suum  propter  ductam  uxo- 
rem,  contra  canones  fecisse  videtur 
mihi,  nisi  forte  cogente  pertinacia 
ipsius. — Epist.  Berengar.  Turon.  (Mar- 
tene  Thesaur.  I.  195-6).  It  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  persecution  of 
Berenger  arose  solely  from  his  theo¬ 


logical  subtleties,  and  that  objections 
to  celibacy  formed  no  portion  of  his 
errors. 

2  Art  de  Verifier  les  Dates,  s.  v. 

3  Concil.  Pictaviens.  ann.  1078  can.  9. 

4  Concil.  Rotomag.  ann.  1072  can.  16 
“  de  clericis  uxoratis.” 


NORMANDY  —  SECULAR  INTERFERENCE. 


257 


submit  quietly  to  this  abridgement  of  their  accustomed  privileges, 
and  they  expressed  their  dissent  by  raising  a  terrible  clamor  and 
driving  their  archbishop  from  the  council  with  a  shower  of  stones, 
from  which  he  barely  escaped  alive.1  At  length,  in  view  of  the  utter 
failure  of  all  ecclesiastical  legislation,  the  laity  were  called  in.  Wil¬ 
liam  the  Conqueror,  therefore,  in  1080,  assisted  the  Archbishop  of 
Rouen  in  holding  a  synod  at  Lillebonne,  where  the  stern  presence 
of  the  suzerain  prevented  any  unseemly  resistance  to  the  adoption 
of  most  unpalatable  regulations.  All  who  were  in  holy  orders  were 
forbidden,  under  any  pretext,  to  keep  women  in  their  houses,  and  if, 
when  accused  of  disobedience,  they  were  unable  to  prove  themselves 
innocent,  their  benefices  were  irretrievably  forfeited.  If  the  accusa¬ 
tion  was  made  by  the  ecclesiastical  officials,  the  offender  wTas  to  be 
tried  by  the  episcopal  court,  but  if  his  parishioners  or  feudal  superior 
were  the  complainants,  he  was  to  be  brought  before  a  mixed  tribunal, 
composed  of  the  squires  of  his  parish  and  the  officials  of  the  bishop. 
This  startling  invasion  of  the  dearest  privileges  of  the  church  was 
declared  by  William  to  proceed  from  no  desire  to  interfere  with  the 
jurisdiction  of  his  bishops,  but  to  be  a  temporary  expedient,  rendered 
necessary  by  their  negligence.  Nor  was  this  remarkable  measure 
the  only  thing  that  renders  the  synod  of  Lillebonne  worthy  of  note, 
for  it  affords  us  the  earliest  authoritative  indication  of  a  practice 
which  subsequently  became  a  standing  disgrace  to  the  church.  The 
fifth  canon  declares  that  no  priest  shall  be  forced  to  give  anything  to 
the  bishop  or  to  the  officers  of  the  diocese  beyond  their  lawful  dues, 
and  especially  that  no  money  shall  be  exacted  on  account  of  women 
kept  by  clerks.2  A  tribute  known  as  “cullagium”  became  at  times 
a  recognized  source  of  revenue,  in  consideration  of  which  the  weak¬ 
nesses  of  human  nature  were  excused,  and  ecclesiastics  were  allowed 
to  enjoy  in  security  the  society  of  their  concubines.  We  shall  see 
hereafter  that  this  infamous  custom  continued  to  flourish  until  the 
sixteenth  century,  despite  the  most  strenuous  and  repeated  endeavors 
to  remove  so  grievous  a  scandal. 

It  is  probable  that  the  expedient  of  mixed  courts  for  the  trial  of 
married  and  concubinary  priests  was  not  adopted  without  the  con¬ 
currence  of  Gregory,  who  was  willing  to  make  almost  any  sacrifice 
necessary  to  accomplish  his  purpose.  That  they  were  organized  and 


1  Orderic.  Vital.  P.  n.  Lib.  iv.  c.  2. 

2  Concil.  Juliobonens.  ann.  1080  can. 
3,  5  (Orderic.  Vital.  P.  it.  Lib.  v.  c.  6. 


— Harduin.  Concil.  T.  VI.  P.  i.  p.  1599). 
— Propter  eorum  feminas  nulla  pecuniae 
emendatio  exigatur. 


17 


258 


FRANCE. 


performed  the  functions  delegated  to  them  is  shown  by  a  reference 
in  a  charter  of  1088  to  one  held  at  Caumont,  which  required  a  priest 
to  abandon  either  his  wife  or  his  church.1  So  far,  indeed,  was  Greg¬ 
ory  from  protesting  against  this  violation  of  ecclesiastical  immunities, 
that  he  was  willing  even  to  connive  at  the  abuses  which  immediately 
crept  into  the  system,  and  to  purchase  the  assistance  of  the  laity  by 
allowing  them  to  lay  sacrilegious  hands  on  the  temporalities  of  the 
church.  Many  of  the  nobles  "who  thus  assisted  in  expelling  the 
often  ding  clergy  seized  the  tithes  and  retained  them.  The  papal 
legate,  Hugh,  Bishop  of  Hie — better  known  by  his  subsequent  pri- 
matial  dignity  of  Lyons — proceeded  against  these  invaders  of  church 
property  in  the  usual  manner,  and  excommunicated  them  as  a  matter 
of  course.  Gregory,  however,  who  under  ordinary  circumstances 
would  have  promptly  consigned  the  spoilers  to  the  bottomless  pit, 
now  virtually  took  their  side.  He  discreetly  declined  to  confirm  the 
excommunication,  reproved  his  legate  for  superserviceable  zeal,  and 
ordered  him  in  future  to  be  more  guarded  and  temperate  in  his  pro¬ 
ceedings.2 

Church  and  state — the  zeal  of  the  ecclesiastic  and  the  avarice  of 
the  noble — vainly  united  to  break  down  the  stubbornness  of  the 
Norman  priesthood,  for  marriage  continued  to  be  enjoyed  as  openly 
as  ever.  The  only  effect  of  the  attempted  reform,  indeed,  appeared 
to  be  that  when  a  priest  entered  into  matrimony  he  took  a  solemn 
vow  never  to  give  up  his  wife,  a  measure  prompted  doubtless  by  the 
fears  of  the  bride  and  her  kindred.  The  nuptials  were  public ;  male 
issue  succeeded  to  benefices  by  a  recognized  primogeniture,  and  female 
children  received  their  fathers'  churches  as  dower,  when  other  re¬ 
sources  w'ere  wanting.  About  the  beginning  of  the  twelfth  century, 
three  enthusiastic  ascetic  reformers,  the  celebrated  Robert  d’Arbrissel, 
founder  of  Fontevrault,  Bernard  Abbot  of  Tiron,  and  Yitalis  of 
Mortain  traversed  Normandy  and  preached  with  great  earnestness 
against  these  abuses,  the  result  of  which  was  that  they  nearly  came 
to  an  untimely  end  at  the  hands  of  the  indignant  pastors  and  their 
more  indignant  spouses.  On  one  occasion,  when  Bernard  was  preach¬ 
ing  at  Coutances,  a  married  archdeacon  assailed  him,  with  a  crowd 
of  priests  and  clerks,  asking  how  he,  a  monk,  dead  to  the  world, 
presumed  to  preach  to  the  living.  Bernard  replied  that  Samson  had 


1  Pauli  Carnot.  Vet.  Agano.  Lib.  vm.  c.  11. 

2  Gregor.  VII.  Regist.  Lib.  ix.  Epist.  5. 


BRITANNY 


FLANDERS. 


259 


slain  his  foes  with  the  jaw-bone  of  a  dead  ass,  and  then  proceeded 
with  so  moving  a  discourse  on  Samson,  that  the  archdeacon  wTas 
converted,  and  interfered  to  save  him  from  the  mob.1 

If  William  the  Conqueror  found  his  advantage  in  thus  assisting 
the  hopeless  reform  within  his  duchy  of  Normandy,  he  had  no  hesi¬ 
tation  in  obstructing  it  when  his  policy  demanded  such  a  course  in 
his  subject  province  of  Britanny.  During  the  three  and  a  half  cen¬ 
turies  through  which  the  Breton  church  maintained  its  independence 
of  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Tours,  its  metropolis  was  Dol.  Judhael, 
who  occupied  its  lofty  seat,  not  only  obtained  it  by  simony,  but  sullied 
it  by  a  public  marriage ;  and  when  the  offspring  of  this  illicit  union 
reached  maturity  he  portioned  them  from  the  property  of  the 
church.  This  prolonged  violation  of  the  canons  attracted  the  atten¬ 
tion  of  Gregory  soon  after  his  accession,  and  in  1076  he  informed 
William  that  he  had  deposed  the  offender.  William,  however,  saw 
fit  to  defend  the  scandal,  and  refused  to  receive  Evenus,  Abbot  of  St. 
Melanius,  whom  Gregory  had  appointed  as  a  successor.2  Judhael, 
indeed,  was  no  worse  than  his  suffragans.  For  three  generations  the 
diocese  of  Quimper  was  held  by  father,  son,  and  grandson ;  while 
the  Bishops  of  Rennes,  Yannes,  and  Nantes  were  openly  married, 
and  their  wives  enjoyed  the  recognized  rank  of  countesses,  as  an 
established  right.3  How  much  improvement  resulted  from  the  efforts 
of  Gregory  and  his  legate  Hugh  may  be  estimated  from  the  descrip¬ 
tion,  in  general  terms,  of  the  iniquities  ascribed  to  the  Breton  clergy, 
both  secular  and  regular,  in  the  early  part  of  the  next  century,  by 
Paschal  II.  when  granting  the  pallium  to  Baldric,  Archbishop  of 
Dol.  All  classes  are  described  as  indulging  in  enormities  hateful  to 
God  and  man,  and  as  having  no  hesitation  in  setting  the  canons  at 
defiance.  In  Britanny,  as  in  Wales  and  Spain,  the  centralizing 
influence  of  Rome  was  at  fault,  and  priestly  marriage  was  persevered 
in  long  after  it  had  been  abrogated  elsewhere.4 


In  Flanders,  Count  Robert  the  Frisian  and  Adela,  his  mother,  were 
well  disposed  to  second  the  reformatory  measures  of  Gregory,  but, 


1  G-aufridi  G-rossi  Yit.  Bernardi  Ti- 

ronens.  c.  6  51-54. 

2  Gregor.  VII.  Epist.  Extrav.  29. — 
Epist.  in  Martene  Thesaur.  III.  871 
-6. 

3  Roujoux,  Hist,  de  Bretagne,  II. 
98-99.  The  independence  affected  by 
the  Breton  church  is  well  shown  in  a 


singularly  impertinent  letter  addressed 
to  Leo  IX.  by  the  clergy  of  Nantes,  re¬ 
fusing  to  receive  a  bishop  appointed  by 
him,  after  the  degradation  for  simony 
of  Prodicus  by  the  council  of  Rheims 
in  1050  (Martene  Thesaur.  I.  172-3). 

4  Martene  Thesaur.  III.  882. — Had- 
dan  and  Stubbs  II.  96. 


260 


FRANCE. 


doubting  their  right  to  eject  the  offenders,  they  applied  to  him,  in 
1076,  for  instructions.  His  answers  were  unequivocal,  urging  them 
to  the  most  prompt  and  summary  proceedings.1  The  spirit  in  which 
the  clergy  met  the  attack  was  manifested  by  the  incident  already 
described,  when,  in  1077,  an  unfortunate  zealot  was  burned  at  the 
stake  in  Cambrai  for  maintaining  the  propriety  of  the  papal  decretals. 
The  same  disposition,  though  fortunately  leading  to  less  deplorable 
results,  was  exhibited  in  Artois.  At  the  instance  of  Adela,  Robert, 
in  1072,  had  founded  the  Priory  of  Watten,  near  St.  Omer.  Despite 
this  powerful  interest  and  patronage,  the  house  had  a  severe  struggle 
for  existence,  as  its  prior,  Otfrid,  lent  his  influence  to  support  the 
reform  and  to  enforce  the  decrees  of  Gregory.  Reproaches  and 
curses  were  showered  upon  the  infant  community,  and  it  was  openly 
threatened  with  fire  and  sword,  until  the  unfortunate  brethren  felt 
equally  insecure  within  their  walls  and  abroad.  At  length  the 
Countess  Adela  took  Otfrid  with  her  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome,  and 
there  the  holy  man  procured  from  Gregory  a  confirmation  of  the 
privileges  of  his  house.  On  his  return,  he  found  that  this  instrument 
only  made  the  persecution  more  vehement.  Accusations  of  all  kinds 
were  made  against  the  priory,  and  its  enemies  succeeded  in  causing 
the  brethren  to  be  brought  for  trial  before  the  local  synod,  where  the 
production  of  the  papal  charter  was  ordered.  It  was  at  once  pro¬ 
nounced  a  forgery,  was  taken  away  by  force,  and  was  retained  by  the 
Bishop,  Drogo  of  Terouane,  in  spite  of  all  remonstrance.2 

The  opposition  of  the  clergy  was  not  lessened  by  the  manner  in 
which  the  secular  authorities  exercised  the  power  bestowed  upon 
them.  Count  Robert  saw  the  advantages  derivable  from  the  position 
of  affairs  and  seems  to  have  been  resolved  to  turn  it  thoroughly  to 
account.  Among  other  modes  adopted  was  that  of  the  “jus  spolii,” 
by  which  he  seized  the  effects  of  dying  ecclesiastics,  turning  their 
families  out  of  doors  and  disinheriting  the  heirs.  These  arbitrary 
proceedings  he  defended  on  the  ground  of  the  incontinence  of  the 
sufferers,  boldly  declaring  that  wicked  priests  were  no  priests — as  if, 
groaned  the  indignant  clerks,  sinful  men  were  not  men.3  In  1091, 


1  Gregor.  VII.  Regist.  Lib.  iv. 
Epistt.  10,  11. 

2  Ebrardi  Chron.  Watinens.  cap. 

22-3.  Ebrard  was  a  contemporary,  a 
disciple  of  Otfrid,  and  therefore  his 
statement  of  the  motives  of  the  perse¬ 
cution  is  entitled  to  credence. 


3  “  Addens  malos  sacerdotes  sacer- 
dotes  non  esse,  acsi  peccator  homo 
non  esset  homo.”  From  the  tenor  of 
Robert’s  defence  it  is  evident  that  it 
was  the  children  of  the  clerks  whom  he 
disinherited.  The  documents  are  in 
AVamkonig,  Hist,  de  Flandre,  I.  330-3 
(Bruxelles,  1835). 


FLANDERS  —  SECULAR  TYRANNY. 


261 


the  Flemish  priests  complained  of  these  acts  to  Urban  II.,  and  he 
vainly  endeavored  to  interfere  in  their  behalf.1  Finding  this  resource 
fail,  they  appealed  to  their  metropolitan,  Renaud,  Archbishop  of 
Rheims,  who  by  active  measures  succeeded  in  putting  an  end  to  the 
abuse  in  1092. 

Amid  all  this  the  church  proved  powerless  to  enforce  its  laws,  and 
again  it  called  upon  the  feudal  authority  for  assistance — this  time  in 
a  manner  by  wdiich  it  admitted  its  impotence  on  a  question  so  vital. 
In  1099,  Manasses  of  Rheims  held  a  provincial  synod  at  St.  Omer, 
which  instructed  the  Count  of  Flanders,  Robert  the  Hierosolymitan, 
to  seize  the  wives  of  all  priests  who  after  excommunication  declined 
to  abandon  their  guilty  partners ;  and  in  this  he  was  not  to  ask  or 
wait  for  the  assent  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese.  The  sturdy  Cru¬ 
sader  would  doubtless  have  carried  out  this  order  to  the  letter,  with 
all  its  attendant  cruelty  and  misery,  but  the  clergy  of  the  province 
united  in  remonstrances  so  vehement  that  Manasses  was  forced  to 
abandon  his  position.  He  accordingly  requested  Robert  on  no 
account  to  disturb  the  married  priests  and  their  wives,  or  to  permit 
his  nobles  to  do  so,  except  when  assistance  was  demanded  by  the 
bishops.  He  acknowledged  the  injustice  he  had  committed  in  over¬ 
slaughing  the  constituted  authorities  of  the  church,  and  deprecated 
the  rapine  and  spoliation  wdiich  so  ill-advised  a  proceeding  might 
cause.  At  the  same  time  he  admonished  his  suffragans  to  proceed 
vigorously  against  all  who  married  in  orders,  and  to  call  on  the 
seigneurial  power  to  coerce  those  who  should  prove  contumacious.2 

Harsh  and  violent  as  were  the  measures  thus  threatened,  there 
appears  to  have  been  extreme  hesitation  in  carrying  them  out.  A 
certain  clerk  known  as  Robert  of  Artois  committed  the  unpardonable 
indiscretion  of  marrying  a  widow,  and  openly  resisted  all  the  efforts 
of  his  bishop  to  reduce  him  to  obedience.  Not  only  his  original 
crime,  but  his  subsequent  contumacious  rebellion  would  assuredly 
justify  the  severest  chastisement,  yet  both  the  secular  and  ecclesi¬ 
astical  powers  of  the  province  seem  to  have  been  at  fault,  for  it  was 
found  necessary  to  ask  the  interference  of  no  less  a  personage  than 
Richard,  Bishop  of  Albano,  then  enjoying  the  dignity  of  papal  legate 
in  France.  In  1104  the  legate  accordingly  addressed  the  Count  of 
Flanders  with  the  very  moderate  request  that  the  obstinate  rebel  and 
his  abettors  should  be  held  as  excommunicate  until  they  should  rec- 


1  Urbani  PP.  II.  Epist.  70. 


2  Lambert.  Atrebat.  Epist.  GO. 


262 


FRANCE. 


oncile  themselves  to  their  bishop.  Robert  finally  appealed  to  Rome 
itself,  but  in  the  end  was  obliged  to  succumb.  Similar  was  the  case 
of  two  Artesian  deacons  who  refused  to  abandon  their  wives  until 
Lambert,  the  bishop  of  Artois,  excommunicated  them,  when  they 
travelled  to  Rome  in  hopes  of  reconciliation  to  the  church.  Paschal 
II.  absolved  them  on  their  taking  a  solemn  oath  upon  the  Gospels 
to  live  chastely  in  future,  and  he  sent  them  back  to  Lambert  with 
instructions  to  keep  a  careful  watch  upon  them.1  These  cases,  which 
chance  to  remain  on  record,  show  how  obstinately  the  clergy  held 
to  their  wives  and  how'  difficult  it  w'as  to  convince  them  that  the 
authorities  of  the  church  were  determined  to  enforce  the  canons. 
We  therefore  need  not  be  surprised  to  find  Paschal  II.,  after  the  year 
1100,  writing  to  the  clergy  of  Terouane,  expressing  his  astonishment 
that,  in  spite  of  so  many  decretals  of  popes  and  canons  of  councils, 
they  still  adhered  to  their  consorts,  some  of  them  openly  and  some 
secretly.  To  remedy  this,  he  has  nothing  but  a  repetition  of  the 
old  threat  of  deprivation.2 

The  confusion  which  this  attempted  reformation  caused  in  France 
was  apparently  not  so  aggravated  as  we  have  seen  it  in  Germany, 
and  yet  it  was  sufficiently  serious.  Guibert  de  Nogent  relates  that 
in  his  youth  commenced  the  persecution  of  the  married  priests  by 
Rome,  when  a  cousin  of  his,  a  layman  of  flagrant  and  excessive 
licentiousness,  made  himself  conspicuous  by  his  attacks  on  the  fail¬ 
ings  of  the  clergy.  The  family  were  anxious  to  provide  for  young 
Guibert,  wTho  wTas  destined  to  the  church,  and  the  cousin  used  his 
influence  with  the  patron  of  a  benefice  to  oust  the  married  incumbent 
and  bestow  the  preferment  on  Guibert.  The  priest  thus  forcibly 
ejected  abandoned  neither  his  wife  nor  his  functions,  but  relieved  his 
mind  by  excommunicating  every  day,  in  the  Mass,  Guibert’s  mother 
and  all  her  family,  until  the  good  woman’s  fears  were  so  excited  that 
she  abandoned  the  prebend  which  she  had  obtained  with  so  much 
labor.3  We  can  readily  conceive  this  incident  to  be  a  type  of  what 
was  occurring  in  every  corner  of  the  kingdom,  when,  in  an  age  of 
brute  force,  the  reverence  which  was  the  only  defence  of  the  priest¬ 
hood  was  partially  destroyed,  and  the  people  hardly  knewr  whether 


1  Lambert.  Atrebat.  Epist.  84 — Pas- 
cbalis  PP.  II.  Epist.  134. — Lambert. 
Epist.  apud  Baluz.  et  Mansi  II.  150. 


2  Pascbalis  PP.  II.  Epist.  415. 

3  Guibert.  Noviogent.  de  Vita  Sua 
Lib.  I.  cap.  vii. 


FRUITLESS  EFFORTS. 


263 


they  were  to  adore  their  pastors  as  representatives  of  God  or  to 
dread  them  as  the  powerful  ministers  of  evil. 

When  the  religious  ardor  of  Europe  rose  to  the  wild  excitement 
that  culminated  in  the  Crusades,  and  Pope  Urban  II.  astutely 
availed  himself  of  the  movement  to  place  the  church  in  possession 
of  a  stronger  influence  over  the  minds  of  men  than  it  had  ever 
before  enjoyed,  it  was  to  no  purpose  that  the  great  council  of  Cler¬ 
mont,  in  1095,  took  the  opportunity  to  proclaim  in  the  most  solemn 
manner  the  necessity  of  perfect  purity  in  ministers  of  the  altar,  to 
denounce  irrevocable  expulsion  for  contravention  of  the  rule,  and  to 
forbid  the  children  of  ecclesiastics  from  entering  the  church  except 
as  monks  or  canons.1  It  was  the  weightiest  exposition  of  church 
discipline,  and  was  promulgated  under  circumstances  to  give  it  the 
widest  publicity  and  the  highest  authority.  Yet,  within  a  few  years, 
we  find  Gualo,  Bishop  of  Paris,  applying  to  Ivo  of  Chartres  for 
advice  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done  with  a  canon  of  his  church  who 
had  recently  married,  and  Ivo  in  reply  recommending  as  a  safe 
course  that  the  marriage  be  held  valid,  but  that  the  offender  be 
relieved  of  his  stipend  and  functions.2  His  answer,  moreover,  is 
written  in  a  singularly  undecided  tone,  and  an  elaborate  argument 
is  presented  as  though  the  matter  were  still  open  to  discussion, 
although  Ivo’s  laborious  compilations  of  the  canon  law  show  that 
he  was  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  ancient  discipline  which  the 
depravity  of  his  generation  had  rendered  obsolete.3  Hardly  less 
significant  is  another  epistle  in  which  Ivo  calls  the  attention  of 
Daimbert,  Archbishop  of  Sens,  to  the  conduct  of  one  of  his  digni¬ 
taries  who  publicly  maintained  two  concubines  and  was  preparing  to 
marry  a  third.  He  urges  Daimbert  to  put  an  end  to  the  scandal, 
and  suggests  that  if  he  is  unable  to  accomplish  it  single-handed,  he 
should  summon  two  or  three  of  his  suffragans  to  his  assistance.4 
Either  of  these  instances  is  a  sufficient  confession  of  the  utter  futility 
of  the  ceaseless  exertions  which  for  half  a  century  the  church  had 
been  making  to  enforce  her  discipline.  Nor,  perhaps,  can  her  ill- 


1  Concil.  Claremont,  can.  9,  10,  25. 
In  Lent  of  the  following  year  (1096) 
Urban  caused  these  canons  to  be  re¬ 
ceived  by  a  provincial  council  held 
under  his  auspices  at  Tours. — Bernald. 
Constant,  ann.  1096. 


2  Ivon.  Carnot.  Epist.  218. 

3  Ivon.  Decret.  P.  vi.  c.  50  sqq. 
Panorm.  Lib.  in.  c.  84  sqq. 

4  Ivon.  Epist.  200. 


264 


FRANCE. 


success  be  wondered  at  when  we  consider  how  unworthy  were  the 
hands  to  which  was  frequently  intrusted  the  administering  of  the 
law  and  the  laxity  of  opinion  which  viewed  the  worst  transgressions 
with  indulgence.  The  archdeacons  were  the  officials  to  whom  was 
specially  confided  the  supervision  over  sacerdotal  morals,  and  yet, 
when  a  man  occupying  that  responsible  position,  like  Aldebert  of 
Le  Mans,  publicly  surrounded  himself  'with  a  harem,  and  took  no 
shame  from  the  resulting  crowd  of  offspring,  so  little  did  his  conduct 
shock  the  sensibilities  of  the  age  that  he  was  elevated  to  the  episcopal 
chair,  and  only  the  stern  voice  of  Ivo  could  be  heard  reproving  the 
measureless  scandal.1 


Equal  looseness  pervaded  the  monastic  establishments.  Hildebert, 
Bishop  of  Le  Mans,  made  numerous  fruitless  attempts  to  restore 
discipline  in  the  celebrated  abbey  of  Euron,  the  monks  of  wdiich 
indulged  in  the  grossest  licentiousness,  and  successfully  defied  his 
power  until  he  was  obliged  to  appeal  to  the  papal  legate  for  assist¬ 
ance.2  Albero  of  Verdun,  after  fruitless  attempts  to  reform  the 
monastery  of  St.  Paul,  in  his  episcopal  city,  was  obliged  to  turn  out 
the  monks  by  force  and  replace  them  with  Premonstratensians,  who 
were  then  in  the  full  ardor  of  their  new  discipline.3  The  description 
which  Ivo  of  Chartres  gives  of  the  convent  of  St.  Fara  shows  a  pro¬ 
miscuous  and  shameless  prostitution,  on  the  part  of  the  nuns  of  that 
institution,  even  more  degrading.4  Instances  like  these  could  be 
almost  indefinitely  multiplied,  such  as  that  of  St.  Mary  of  Argen- 
tueil,  reformed  by  Heloise,  the  great  foundation  of  St.  Denis,  previ¬ 
ous  to  the  abbacy  of  Suger,  and  that  of  St.  Gildas  de  Buys  in 
Britanny,  as  described  by  Abelard;5  who,  moreover,  depicts  the 
nuns  of  the  period,  in  general  terms,  as  abandoned  to  the  most 
hideous  licentiousness — those  who  were  good-looking  prostituting 


1  Quod  ultra  modum  laxaveris  frena  3  Hist.  Episc.  Verdunens.  (D’Aehery 
pudicitiae,  in  tantum  ut  post  acceptum  Spicileg.  II.  254). 
archidiaconatum,  accubante  lateribus 

tuis  plebe  muliercularum,  multam  4  Audivi  turpissimam  famam .  de 
genueris  plebem  puerorum  et  puella-  nionasterio  Sanctae  Fara?,  quod  jam 
Vnrn  TluH  Fnist  977  non  locus  sanctimonialium  sed  mulie- 

rum.  101a.  r-pist.  //,.  rum  dsmonialium  prostibulum  dicen- 

2  Est  etiam  eis  publica  et  inexpug-  dum  est,  corpora  sua  ad  turpes  usus 

nabilis  cum  mulieribus  familiaritas,  omni  generi  nominum  prostituentium. 
quibus  ilia?,  promissis  et  praemissis  _ Ivon.  Epist.  70. 

obligatae  munusculis,  dies  iniquitatis 

et  noctes  infamise  vindicare  compro-  5  Martene  Thesaur.  T.  V.  p.  1142-3. 
bantur. — Hildebert.  Cenoman.  Epist.  — Honorii  PP.  II.  Epist.  91. — Guill. 
38  (Lib.  II.  Epist.  25).  Nangis  ann.  1123,  1124. 


HEREDITARY  TRANSMISSION. 


265 


themselves  for  hire,  those  who  were  not  so  fortunate  hiring  men  to 
gratify  their  passions,  while  the  older  ones,  who  had  passed  the  age 
of  lust,  acted  as  procuresses.1  Innocent  III.  may  therefore  be 
absolved  from  the  charge  of  exaggeration  when,  in  ordering  the 
reform  of  the  nuns  of  St.  Agatha,  he  alludes  to  their  convent  as  a 
brothel  which  infected  with  its  evil  reputation  the  whole  country 
around  it.2  A  contemporary  chronicler  records  as  a  matter  of  special 
wonder  that  John  of  Salisbury,  Bishop  of  Chartres,  forced  his  canons 
to  live  in  cloisters  according  to  the  Rule  of  St.  Augustin ;  and  he 
adds  that,  stimulated  by  this  example,  his  uncle,  John  of  Lisieux,  and 
his  successor,  Geoffrey  of  Chartres,  attempted  the  same  reform,  but 
without  success.3  It  is  true  that  some  partial  reform  was  effected  by 
St.  Bernard,  but  the  austerities  of  the  new  orders  founded  by  enthu¬ 
siasts  like  him  and  St.  Bruno,  Robert  d’Arbrissel  and  St.  Norbert, 
did  not  cure  the  ineradicable  vices  of  the  older  establishments. 


With  such  examples  before  us,  it  is  not  difficult  to  believe  the  truth 
of  the  denunciations  with  which  the  celebrated  Raoul  of  Poitiers, 
whose  fiery  zeal  gained  for  him  the  distinctive  appellation  of  Ardens, 
lashed  the  vices  of  his  fellows ;  nor  can  we  conclude  that  it  was  mere 
rhetorical  amplification  which  led  him  to  declare  that  the  clergy,  who 
should  be  models  for  their  flocks,  were  more  shameless  and  aban¬ 
doned  than  those  whose  lives  it  was  their  duty  to  guide.4  Peter 
Cantor,  indeed,  deplores  the  superiority  of  the  laity  to  the  clergy 
as  the  greatest  injury  that  afflicted  the  church.5 

The  natural  result  of  such  a  state  of  morals  was  the  prevalence  of 
the  hereditary  principle  against  which  the  church  had  so  long  and  so 
perseveringly  striven.  How  completely  this  came  to  be  regarded  as 
a  matter  of  course,  is  shown  by  a  contemporary  charter  to  the  ancient 
monastery  of  Beze,  by  which  a  priest  named  Germain,  on  entering  it 
bestowed  upon  it  his  holding,  consisting  of  certain  specified  tithes. 


1  P.  Abaelardi  Sermo  xxix. 

2  Bull.  Pontif.  No.  xxm.  ap.  Hahnii 
Collect.  Monument.  Vet.  I.  147.  As 
to  the  reformation  of  the  nuns  of  Laon, 
see  Guill.  de  Nangis  ann.  1128. 

3  Ptoberti  de  Monte  Chron.  ann.  1143. 

4  Nonne  qui  nocentes  deberemus 

absolvere,  eis  malo  exemplo  nocemus  ? 
Nonne  qui  deberemus  pollutos  lavare, 
vitiorum  nostrorum  contagione  alios 
polluimus? - Sed  nos,  hodie  indigni 


sacerdotes  quid  dicemus  qui  caeteris 
hominibus  non  majores  sed  deteriores 
sumus  ?  Qui  cum  in  conspectu  homi- 
num  gradu  sacerdotalis  ordinis  celsi- 
ores  caeteris  videamur,  tamen  caeteris 
inferiores  vita  moribusque  jacemus  ? 
Eadulph.  Ardent.  T.  II.  P.  ii.  Homil. 
25. — See  also  Homil.  21. 

5  Nihil  enim  est  quo  magis  laedatur 
Ecclesia  quam  quod  laicos  videt  esse 
meliores  clericis.  —  Pet.  Cant.  Verb. 
Abbreviat.  cap.  lvii. 


266 


FRANCE. 


This  deed  of  gift  is  careful  to  declare  the  assent  of  the  sons  of  the 
donor,  showing  that  the  title  of  the  monastery  would  not  have  been 
considered  good  as  against  the  claims  of  Germain’s  descendants  had 
they  not  joined  in  the  conveyance.1  Even  as  late  as  1202  we  find 
Innocent  III.  endeavoring  to  put  a  stop  to  the  hereditary  trans¬ 
mission  of  benefices  in  the  bishopric  of  Toul,  where  it  was  practised 
to  an  extent  which  showed  how  little  impression  had  as  yet  been 
made  by  the  unceasing  efforts  of  the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years.2 

When  in  the  presence  of  so  stiff-necked  and  evil  disposed  a  genera¬ 
tion,  all  human  efforts  seemed  unavailing  to  secure  respect  for  the 
canons  of  councils  and  decretals  of  popes,  we  need  scarcely  wonder  if 
recourse  was  had  to  the  miraculous  agencies  which  so  often  proved 
efficacious  in  subduing  the  minds  of  men.  Wondrous  stories,  accord¬ 
ingly,  were  not  wanting,  to  show  how  offended  Heaven  sometimes 
gave  in  this  world  a  foretaste  of  the  wrath  to  come,  awaiting  those 
who  lived  in  habitual  disregard  of  the  teachings  of  the  church.  Thus 
Peter  the  Venerable  relates  with  much  unction  how  a  priest,  who 
had  abandoned  himself  to  carnal  indulgences,  died  amid  the  horrors 
of  anticipated  hell-fire.  Visible  to  him  alone,  the  demons  chuckling 
around  his  death-bed  heated  the  frying-pan  of  burning  fat  in  which 
he  was  incontinently  to  be  plunged,  while  a  drop  flying  from  the 
sputtering  mass  seared  him  to  the  bone,  as  a  dreadful  material  sign 
that  his  agony  was  not  the  distempered  imagining  of  a  tortured 
conscience.  A  miracle  equally  significant  wrung  a  confession  of  his 
weakness  from  the  Dean  of  Minden  in  11 67. 3 

If  Heaven  thus  miraculously  manifested  its  anger,  it  was  equally 
ready  to  welcome  back  the  repentant  sinner.  In  the  first  energy  of 
the  reforms  of  St.  Bernard,  a  priest  entered  the  abbey  of  Clairvaux. 
The  rigor  of  the  Cistercian  discipline  wore  out  his  enthusiasm ;  he 
fled  from  the  convent,  returned  to  his  parish,  and,  according  to  the 
general  custom,  (“  sicut  multis  consuetudinis  est”)  took  to  himself  a 
concubine,  and  soon  saw  a  family  increasing  around  him.  The  holy 
St.  Bernard  chanced  to  pass  that  way  and  accepted  the  priest’s  warm 
hospitality  without  recognizing  him.  When  the  Saint  was  ready  to 
depart  in  the  morning  he  found  that  his  host  was  absent  performing 


1  Hoc  totum  factum  est  rogatu  Ger-  2  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  v.  67. 
mani  presbvteri,  filiorumque  ejus,  qui 

post  inde  noster  effectus  est  mona-  3  Petri  ^  enerab.  de  Mirac.  Lib.  I. 
chus.  —  Chron.  Besuens.  Chart,  de  c.  25.— Chron.  Episc.  Mindens.  c.  26. 
tenement.  German,  presbyt. 


CALIXTUS  II. 


267 


his  functions  in  the  church,  and,  turning  to  one  of  the  children,  he 
sent  him  with  a  message  to  his  father.  Though  the  child  had  been 
a  deaf-mute  from  birth,  he  promptly  performed  the  errand.  Roused 
by  the  miracle  to  a  sense  of  his  iniquity,  the  apostate  rushed  to  the 
Saint,  threw  himself  at  his  feet,  confessed  who  he  was,  and  entreated 
to  be  taken  back  to  the  monastery.  St.  Bernard  touched  by  his 
repentance,  promised  to  call  for  him  on  his  return.  To  this  the 
priest  objected,  on  the  ground  that  he  might  die  during  the  interval, 
but  was  comforted  with  the  assurance  that  if  he  died  in  such  a  frame 
of  mind,  he  would  be  received  by  God  as  a  monk.  When  St.  Bernard 
returned,  the  repentant  sinner  was  dead.  Inquiring  as  to  the  cere¬ 
monies  of  his  interment,  he  was  told  that  the  corpse  had  been  buried 
in  its  priestly  garments;  whereupon  he  ordered  the  grave  to  be 
opened,  and  it  was  found  arrayed,  not  in  its  funeral  robes,  but  in  full 
Cistercian  habit  and  tonsure,  showing  that  God  had  fulfilled  the 
promises  made  in  his  name.1 


Such  was  the  condition  of  the  Gallican  church  when,  in  1119, 
Calixtus  II.  stepped  from  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Vienne  to  the 
chair  of  St.  Peter.  His  first  great  object  was  to  end  the  quarrel 
with  the  empire  on  the  subject  of  investitures,  the  vicissitudes  of 
which  rendered  the  papacy  at  the  time  of  his  accession  an  exile  from 
Italy ;  his  second  was  to  carry  out  the  reforms  so  long  and  so  fruit¬ 
lessly  urged  by  his  predecessors.  To  accomplish  both  these  results 
he  lost  no  time  in  summoning  a  great  council  to  assemble  at  Rheims, 
and  when  it  met  in  November,  1119,  no  less  than  fifteen  archbishops, 
more  than  two  hundred  bishops,  and  numerous  abbots  responded  to 
the  call,  representing  Italy,  France,  Aquitaine,  Spain,  Germany,  and 
England.  The  attempted  reconciliation  with  the  Emperor  Henry  V. 
failed,  but  the  vices  and  corruptions  of  the  church  were  vigorously 
attacked  and  sternly  prohibited  for  the  future.  All  commerce  with 
concubines  or  wives  was  positively  forbidden  under  pain  of  depriva¬ 
tion  of  benefice  and  function.  No  choice  was  granted  the  offender, 
for  continuance  in  his  sin  after  expulsion  was  punishable  with  excom¬ 
munication  ;  and  the  hereditary  transmission  of  ecclesiastical  dignities 
and  property  was  strictly  prohibited.2  Whether  it  was  the  lofty 


1  S.  Bernardi  Vitae  Primae  Lib.  vn. 
cap.  xxi. 

2  Concil.  Remens.  ann.  1119  can. 
4,  5. — “  Nullus  episcopus,  nullus  pres¬ 
byter,  nullus  omnino  de  clero  ecclesi- 


asticas  dignitates  vel  beneficia  cuilibet, 
quasi  hereditario  jure,  derelinquat.” 
Calixtus  had  already  caused  this  pro¬ 
vision  to  be  adopted  by  the  council  of 
Toulouse,  held  in  the  previous  June 
(Concil.  Tolosan.  ann.  1119  can.  8). 


268 


FRANCE. 


character  of  the  new  pope,  his  royal  blood  and  French  extraction,  or 
whether  the  solemnity  of  the  occasion  impressed  men’s  minds,  it  is 
not  easy  now  to  guess,  but  unquestionably  these  proceedings  pro¬ 
duced  greater  effect  upon  the  Transalpine  churches  than  any  previous 
efforts  of  the  Holy  See.  Calixtus  was  long  regarded  as  the  real 
author  of  sacerdotal  celibacy  in  France,  and  his  memory  has  been 
embalmed  in  the  jingling  verses  which  express  the  dissatisfaction  and 
spite  of  the  clergy,  deprived  of  their  ancestral  privileges. 


O  bone  Calliste,  nunc  clerus  od.it  te ; 

Olim  presbyteri  poterant  uxoribus  uti ; 

Hoc  detruxisti  quando  tu  papa  fuisti, 

Ergo  tuum  festum  nunquam  celebratur  honestum.1 


Calixtus  was  not  a  man  to  rest  half  way,  nor  was  he  content  with 
an  empty  promise  of  obedience.  Under  the  pressure  of  his  influence, 
the  French  prelates  found  themselves  obliged  to  take  measures  for 
the  vigorous  enforcement  of  the  canons.  What  those  measures  were, 
and  the  disposition  with  which  they  were  received,  may  be  under¬ 
stood  from  the  resultant  proceedings  in  Normandy.  Geoffrey, 
Archbishop  of  Rouen,  on  leaving  the  council  of  Rheims,  promptly 
called  a  synod,  which  assembled  ere  the  month  was  out.  The  canon 
prohibiting  female  intercourse  roused  abhorrence  and  resistance 
among  his  clergy,  and  they  inveighed  loudly  against  the  innovation. 
Geoffrey  singled  out  one  who  rendered  himself  particularly  prominent 
in  the  tumult,  and  caused  him  to  be  seized  and  cast  into  prison ; 
then,  leaving  the  church,  he  called  in  his  guards,  whom,  with  acute 
anticipation  of  trouble,  he  had  posted  in  readiness.  The  rude 
soldiery  fell  upon  the  unarmed  priests,  some  of  whom  promptly 
escaped ;  the  rest,  grasping  what  weapons  they  could  find,  made  a 
gallant  resistance,  and  succeeded  in  beating  back  the  assailants.  A 
mob  speedily  collected,  which  took  sides  with  the  archbishop.  Assisted 
by  this  unexpected  reinforcement,  the  guards  again  forced  their  way 
into  the  church,  where  thev  beat  and  maltreated  the  unfortunate 
clerks  to  their  heart’s  content ;  when,  as  the  chronicler  quaintly 
observes,  the  synod  broke  up  in  confusion,  and  the  members  fled 
without  awaiting  the  archiepiscopal  benediction.2 


1  Cujas  quotes  these  verses  as  still 
current  in  his  day,  and  attributes  to 
the  efforts  of  Calixtus  the  suppres¬ 


sion  of  sacerdotal  marriage  in  France. 
(Giannone,  Apologia,  c.  xiv.) 

2  Orderic.  Vital.  P.  in.  Lib.  xii. 

c.  13. 


EFFECTS  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 


269 


The  immediate  effect  of  the  reformation  thus  inaugurated  may 
perhaps  be  judged  with  sufficient  accuracy  by  the  story  of  Abelard 
and  Heloise,  which  occurred  about  this  period.  That  Abelard  was  a 
canon  when  that  immortal  love  arose,  was  not,  in  such  a  state  of 
morals,  any  impediment  to  the  gratification  of  his  passion,  nor  did  it 
diminish  the  satisfaction  of  the  canon  Fulbert  at  the  marriage  of  his 
niece,  for  such  marriages,  as  yet,  were  valid  by  ecclesiastical  law. 
In  her  marvellous  self-abnegation,  however,  Heloise  recognized  that 
while  the  fact  of  his  openly  keeping  a  mistress,  and  acknowledging 
Astrolabius  as  his  illegitimate  son,  would  be  no  bar  to  his  preferment, 
and  would  leave  open  to  him  a  career  equal  to  the  wildest  dreams  of 
his  ambition,  yet  to  admit  that  he  had  sanctified  their  love  by 
marriage,  and  had  repaired,  as  far  as  possible,  the  wrong  which  he 
had  committed,  would  ruin  his  prospects  forever.  In  a  worldly  point 
of  view  it  was  better  for  him,  as  a  churchman,  to  have  the  reputation 
of  shameless  immorality  than  that  of  a  loving  and  pious  husband ; 
and  this  was  so  evidently  a  matter  of  course  that  she  willingly  sacri¬ 
ficed  everything,  and  practised  every  deceit,  that  he  might  be  con¬ 
sidered  a  reckless  libertine,  who  had  refused  her  the  only  reparation 
in  his  power.  Such  was  the  standard  of  morals  created  by  the 
church,  and  such  were  the  conclusions  inevitably  drawn  from  them. 

Nor  were  these  conclusions  erroneous,  if  we  may  judge  by  an 
incident  of  the  period.  An  archdeacon  of  Angouleme  had  com¬ 
mitted  the  unpardonable  crime  of  seducing  the  abbess  of  a  convent 
in  the  district  under  his  charge.  When  the  results  of  the  amour 
could  be  no  longer  concealed,  and  the  Count  of  Angouleme  ventured 
to  remonstrate  with  Gerard,  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  that  worthy 
prelate  protected  the  offender  by  dismissing  the  charge  with  a  filthy 
jest.  Yet  so  far  w^as  Gerard  from  forfeiting  the  respect  of  his  con¬ 
temporaries  by  this  laxity,  that  he  was  soon  afterwards  appointed 
papal  legate.1  Somewhat  similar  is  the  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from 
an  occurrence  about  the  same  time  in  the  diocese  of  Comminges, 
where  a  deacon  was  entangled  in  a  guilty  connection  and  was  sum¬ 
moned  with  his  paramour  before  the  bishop,  St.  Bertrand.  The 
reproof  of  the  holy  man  reduced  the  deacon  to  contrition,  but  the 
woman  was  defiant.  He  escaped  punishment,  while  she  was  seized 
by  demons  and  expired  on  the  spot.2 

1  Arnulf.  Lexoviens.  de  Schismate  2  Yit.  S.  Bertrandi  Convenar.  No. 
cap.  i.  ii.  (D’Achery  I.  153).  13,  14  (Martene  Ampliss.  Collect.  YI. 

i  1028). 


270 


FRANCE. 


Yet  there  are  evidences  that  the  efforts  of  Calixtus,  and  of  the 
fathers  whose  assembled  authority  was  concentrated  at  Rheirns,  did 
not  by  any  means  eradicate  a  custom  which  had  now  become 
traditional.  Soon  afterwards  King  Louis-le-Gros,  in  granting  a 
charter  to  the  church  of  St.  Cornelius  at  Compiegne,  felt  it  necessary 
to  accompany  the  privileges  bestowed  with  a  restriction,  worded  as 
though  it  were  a  novelty,  to  the  effect  that  those  in  holy  orders  con¬ 
nected  with  the  foundation  should  have  no  wives — a  condition  which 
shows  how  little  confidence  existed  in  the  mind  of  the  sagacious 
prince  as  to  the  efficacy  of  the  canons  so  portentiously  promulgated 
by  the  rulers,  and  so  energetically  resisted  by  the  ruled.1  That  he 
was  justified  in  this  lack  of  confidence  is  evident  when  we  see, 
further  on  in  the  century,  an  epistle  of  Alexander  III.,  undated, 
but  probably  written  about  1170,  complaining  of  the  canons  of  St. 
Ursmar  and  Antoin  who  openly  kept  concubines  in  their  houses, 
while  some  of  them  did  not  hesitate  to  marry  ;2  while  as  late  as 
1212  a  council  of  Paris  was  obliged  to  adopt  canons  forbidding  clerks 
married  in  the  lower  orders  to  hold  parishes  while  retaining  their 
wives,  and  suspending  from  benefice  and  functions  all  those  who 
marry  while  in  holy  orders.3 


1  Ut  clerici  ejusdem  ecclesiae  sicut 
usque  modo  vixerunt  permaneant ;  hoc 
tamen  praecipimus  ut  presbyteri,  dia- 
coni,  subdiaconi  nullatenus  deinceps 
uxores  concubinas  habeant ;  caeteri 
vero  cujuscumque  ordinis  clerici  prop¬ 
ter  fornicationem,  licentiam  habeant 


ducendi  uxores.  —  Du  Cange,  s.  v. 
Concubina. 

2  Epist.  Alex.  PP.  III.  in  Martene 
Ampliss.  Collect.  II.  794. 

3  Concil.  Paris,  ann.  1212  can.  xvi., 
xviii.  (Ibid.  VII.  99). 


XVII. 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


We  have  already  seen  what  was  the  condition  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
church  when  William  the  Manzer  overran  the  island  with  his  horde 
of  adventurers.  Making  all  due  allowance  for  the  fact  that  our 
authorities  are  mostly  of  the  class  whose  inclination  would  lead  them 
to  misrepresent  the  conquered  and  to  exaggerate  the  improvement 
attributable  to  the  conquest,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  standard 
of  morality  was  extremely  low,  and  that  the  clergy  were  scarcely 
distinguishable  from  the  laity  in  purity  of  life  or  devotion  to  their 
sacred  calling. 

If  the  reformatory  efforts  of  the  popes  had  not  penetrated  into  the 
kingdom  of  Edward  the  Confessor,  it  was  hardly  to  be  expected  that 
they  would  excite  attention  amid  the  turmoil  attendant  upon  the 
settlement  of  the  new  order  of  political  affairs  and  the  division  of 
the  spoils  among  the  conquerors.  Accordingly,  even  the  vigilance 
of  Gregory  VII.  appears  to  have  virtually  overlooked  the  distant 
land  of  Britain,  conscious,  no  doubt,  that  his  efforts  would  be  vain, 
even  though  the  influence  of  Rome  had  been  freely  thrown  upon  the 
side  of  the  Norman  invader,  and  had  been  of  no  little  assistance  to 
him  in  his  preparations  for  the  desperate  enterprise.  In  fact,  though 
William  saw  fit  to  aid  in  the  suppression  of  matrimony  among  the 
priests  of  his  hereditary  dominions,  and  had  thereby  earned  the 
grateful  praises  of  Gregory  himself,1  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
regarded  the  morals  of  his  new  subjects  as  worthy  of  any  special 
attention.  It  is  true  'that  in  his  system  of  transferring  all  power 
from  the  subject  to  the  dominant  race,  when  Saxon  bishops  were  to 
be  ejected  and  their  places  filled  with  his  own  creatures,  it  was  neces¬ 
sary  for  him  to  effect  his  purpose  in  a  canonical  way,  and  to  procure 


1  Gregor.  VII.  Regist.  Lib.  ix.  Epist.  5. 


272 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


the  degradation  of  his  victims  by  the  church  itself,  as  it  was  impos¬ 
sible  for  him  to  lay  unhallowed  hands  upon  their  consecrated  heads, 
or  to  remove  prelates  from  their  sees  on  questions  of  mere  political 
expediency.  To  accomplish  this,  the  scandals  and  irregularities  of 
their  lives  afforded  the  promptest  and  most  effective  excuse,  and  it 
was  freely  used.  The  vigor  with  which  these  changes  were  carried 
into  effect  is  visible  in  the  synods  of  Winchester  and  Windsor  in 
1070,  where  numerous  bishops  and  abbots  were  deprived  on  various 
pleas ;  and  the  character  of  the  prelates  removed  may  be  assumed 
from  the  description  of  the  Bishop  of  Litchfield  (Chester)  by  Lan- 
franc,  in  a  letter  of  the  same  year  to  Alexander  II.,  where  his  public 
maintenance  of  wife  and  children  is  alleged,  in  addition  to  other 
crimes  of  which  he  was  accused.1  Though  a  puritan,  like  Lanfranc, 
bred  in  the  asceticism  of  the  Abbey  of  Bee,  might  seek  to  enforce 
the  canons  in  an  individual  case,  as  when  he  orders  Arfastus,  Bishop 
of  Thetford,  to  degrade  a  deacon  who  refused  to  part  with  his  wife,2 
yet  that  no  general  effort  was  made  to  effect  a  reform  in  the  ranks  of 
the  clergy  is  evident  from  an  epistle  addressed  in  1071  to  William 
by  Alexander  II.,  in  which,  while  praising  his  zeal  in  suppressing 
the  heresy  of  simony,  and  exhorting  him  to  fresh  exertion  in  the 
good  work,  no  mention  whatever  is  made  of  the  kindred  error  of 
Nicolitism,  which  is  usually  inseparable  in  the  papal  diatribes  of  the 
period.3  Equally  conclusive  is  the  fact  that  when,  in  1075,  Lantranc 
held  a  national  council  in  London  for  the  purpose  of  reforming  the 
English  church,  canons  were  passed  to  restrain  simony,  to  prevent 
incestuous  marriages,  and  to  effect  other  needful  changes,  but  noth¬ 
ing  was  said  respecting  sacerdotal  marriage,  at  that  time  the  princi¬ 
pal  object  of  Gregory’s  vigorous  measures.4 

How  thoroughly,  indeed,  clerical  marriage  and  the  hereditary 
descent  of  benefices  was  received  as  legitimate  by  common  consent 
is  manifested  by  a  case  quoted  by  Camden  from  the  MS.  records  of 
the  Abbey  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul  of  Shrewsbury.  Under  the 
Conqueror,  Roger  de  Montgomery  in  founding  that  house  bestowed 
upon  it  the  church  of  St.  Gregory,  subject  to  the  life  estate  of  the 
canons  then  holding  it,  whose  prebends  as  they  died  should  fall  within 
the  gift  of  the  monks.  The  children  of  the  canons,  however,  dis- 


1  Roger  of  Hoveden.  ann.  1070. — 
Baron.  Annal.  ann.  1070  No.  26. 

2  Lanfranci  Epist.  xxi. 


3  Alexand.  II.  Epist.  83. 

4  Wilkins  Concil.  Mag.  Britan.  I. 

363. 


FIRST  ATTEMPTS  AT  REFORMATION. 


273 


puted  the  gift,  claimed  that  they  had  a  right  to  their  fathers’  hold¬ 
ings,  and  actually  gave  rise  to  a  great  lawsuit  to  defend  their 
position.1 

The  first  steps  to  check  the  irregularities  of  the  priesthood  appear 
to  have  been  taken  in  1076,  at  the  council  of  Winchester,  and  the 
extreme  tenderness  there  displayed  by  Lanfranc  for  the  weakness  of 
his  flock  shows  how  necessary  was  the  utmost  caution  in  treating  a 
question  evidently  new,  and  one  which  deprived  the  English  clergy 
of  a  privilege  to  which  no  taint  of  guilt  had  previously  been  attached. 
We  have  seen  by  the  instance  related  above  that  when  Lanfranc 
could  act  according  to  his  own  convictions,  he  was  inclined  to  enforce 
the  absolute  rule  of  celibacy,  and  we  may  therefore  conclude  that  on 
this  occasion  he  was  overruled  by  the  convictions  of  his  brother  pre¬ 
lates  that  it  was  impossible  to  obtain  obedience.  All  that  the  council 
would  venture  upon  was  a  general  declaration  against  the  wives  of 
men  in  orders,  and  it  permitted  parish  priests  to  retain  their  con¬ 
sorts,  contenting  itself  with  forbidding  future  marriages,  and  enjoin¬ 
ing  on  the  bishops  that  they  should  thereafter  ordain  no  one  in  the 
diaconate  or  priesthood  without  a  pledge  not  to  marry  in  future.2 

Such  legislation  could  only  be  irritating  and  inconclusive.  It 
abandoned  the  principle  for  which  Rome  had  been  contending,  and 
thus  its  spirit  of  worldly  temporizing  deprived  it  of  all  respect  and 
influence.  Obedience  to  it  could  be  therefore  invoked  on  no  higher 
ground  than  that  of  an  arbitrary  and  unjustifiable  command,  and 
accordingly  it  received  so  small  a  share  of  attention  that  when,  some 
twenty-six  years  later,  the  holy  Anselm,  at  the  great  council  of  Lon¬ 
don  in  1102,  endeavored  to  enforce  the  reform,  the  restrictions  which 
he  ordered  were  exclaimed  against  as  unheard  of  novelties,  which, 
being  impossible  to  human  nature,  could  only  result  in  indiscriminate 


1  Camden’s  Britannia,  Tit.  Shropp- 
shire. 

2  Decretumque  est  ut  nullus  canoni- 
cus  uxorem  habeat.  Sacerdotes  vero 
in  castellis  vel  in  vicis  habitantes, 
habentes  uxores  non  cogantur  ut  di- 
mittant ;  non  habentes  interdicantur 
ut  habeant ;  et  deinceps  caventur  epis- 
copi  ut  sacerdotes  vel  diaconos  non 
praesumant  ordinare,  nisi  prius  pro- 


fiteantur  ut  uxores  non  habeant. — 
Wilkins  I.  367. 

Polydor  Virgil  describes  a  council 
of  London  held  by  Lanfranc  in  1078, 
in  which — “Ante  omnia  mores  sacer- 
dotum  parum  puri  quamproxime  po- 
tuit,  ad  priscorum  patrum  regulam 
revocati  sunt,  estque  illis  in  posterum 
tempus  recte  vivendi  modus  praescrip- 
tus  ”  (Angl.  Hist.  Lib.  ix.) ;  but  he  has 
evidently  mixed  together  the  proceed¬ 
ings  of  various  synods. 

18 


274 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


vice,  bringing  disgrace  upon  the  church.1  The  tenor  of  the  canons 
of  this  council,  indeed,  proves  that  the  previous  injunctions  had  been 
utterlv  disregarded.  At  the  same  time  thev  manifest  a  much  stronger 
determination  to  eradicate  the  evil,  though  thev  are  still  far  more 
lenient  than  the  contemporary  Continental  legislation.  No  arch¬ 
deacon.  priest,  or  deacon  could  marry,  nor,  if  married,  could  retain 
his  wife.  If  a  subdeacon,  after  professing  chastity,  married,  he  was 
to  be  subjected  to  the  same  regulation.  No  priest,  as  long  as  he  was 
involved  in  such  unholv  union,  could  celebrate  mass :  if  he  ventured 

•r  ' 

to  do  so.  no  one  was  to  listen  to  him ;  and  he  was.  moreover,  to  be 
deprived  of  all  legal  privileges.  A  profession  of  chastity  was  to  be 
exacted  at  ordination  to  the  subdiaconate  and  to  the  higher  grades : 
and.  finally,  the  children  of  priests  were  forbidden  to  inherit  their 
father's  churches.2 

One  symptom  of  weakness  is  observable  in  all  this.  The  council 
apparently  did  not  venture  to  prescribe  any  ecclesiastical  punishment 
for  the  infraction  of  the  rules  thus  laid  down.  If  this  arose  from 
timidity,  St.  Anselm  did  not  share  it,  for,  when  he  proceeded  to  put 
the  canons  in  practice,  we  find  him  threatening  his  contumacious 
ecclesiastics  with  deprivation  for  persistence  in  their  irregularities. 
A  letter  of  instruction  from  him  to  William.  Archdeacon  of  Canter¬ 
bury.  shows  the  earnestness  with  which  he  entered  upon  the  reform, 
and  also  affords  an  instructive  insight  into  the  difficulties  of  the 
enterprise,  and  the  misery  which  the  forcible  sundering  of  family 
ties  caused  among  those  who  had  never  doubted  the  legality  and 
propriety  of  their  marriages.  Some  ecclesiastics  of  rank  sent  their 
discarded  wives  to  manors  at  a  distance  from  their  dwellings,  and 
these  St.  Anselm  directs  shall  not  be  molested  if  they  will  promise 
to  hold  no  intercourse  except  in  the  presence  of  legitimate  witnesses. 
Some  priests  were  afraid  to  proceed  to  extremities  with  their  wives, 
and  for  these  weak  brethren  grace  is  accorded  until  the  approaching 
Lent,  provided  they  do  not  attempt  meanwhile  to  perform  their 
sacred  functions,  and  can  find  substitutes  of  undoubted  chastity  to 
minister  in  their  places.  The  kindred  of  the  unfortunate  women 
apparently  endeavored  to  avert  the  blow  by  furious  menaces  against 

1  Henric.  Huntingdon.  Lib.  vn. —  with  complacency  the  stigma  attached 
Matt.  Paris  ann.  1102.  —  Henrv  of  to  his  birth  bv  the  new  order  of  things. 


Huntingdon,  though  an  archdeacon, 
was  himself  the  son  of  a  priest,  and 
therefore  was  not  disposed  to  regard 


2  Concil.  Londin.  ann.  1102, — Wil¬ 
kins.  I.  382  (Eadmer.  Hist.  Novor. 
Lib.  hi.  ann.  1102). 


ST.  ANSELM  OF  CANTERBURY. 


275 


those  who  should  render  obedience,  and  these  instigators  of  evil  are 
to  be  restrained  by  threats  of  excommunication.1  Another  letter  to 
the  Bishop  of  Hereford,  who  had  applied  for  instructions  on  the 
subject,  directs  him  to  replace  recalcitrant  priests  with  monks  and 
to  stir  up  the  laity  to  drive  from  the  land  the  obstinate  parsons  and 
their  wives.2  In  the  enforcement  of  these  reforms  he  seemed  to 
meet  with  questions  for  which  he  was  not  prepared,  for  about  this 
time  we  find  him  seeking  instructions  from  Paschal  II.  on  several 
knotty  points :  whether  a  priest  living  with  his  wife  can  be  allowed 
to  administer  the  viaticum  at  the  death-bed  in  the  absence  of  one 
professing  continence ;  and  what  is  to  be  done  with  him  if  he  refuses 
his  ministration  on  the  ground  that  he  is  not  allowed  to  celebrate 
mass.  Paschal  replies,  sensibly  enough,  that  it  is  better  to  have  the 
ministrations  of  an  unchaste  priest  than  to  die  unhouselled,  and  that 
a  priest  refusing  his  offices  under  such  circumstances  is  to  be  pun¬ 
ished  as  a  homicide  of  souls.  This  abandoned  the  Hildebrandine 
theory  and  practice,  and  Anselm  was  more  consistent  when  he 
assumed  that  a  layman  could  perform  baptism  in  preference  to  an 
unchaste  priest.3 

Notwithstanding  these  zealous  efforts  of  the  primate,  and  the 
countenance  of  Henry  Beauclerc,  in  whose  presence  the  council  had 
been  held,  Eadmer  is  forced  sorrowfully  to  admit  that  its  canons 
received  but  scant  respect.  Many  of  the  priests  adopted  a  kind  of 
passive  resistance,  and,  locking  up  their  churches,  suspended  the 
performance  of  all  sacred  rites.4  Even  in  Anselm’s  own  diocese, 
ecclesiastics  were  found  who  obstinately  refused  either  to  part  with 
their  wives  or  to  pretermit  their  functions,  and  who,  when  duly 
excommunicated,  laughed  at  the  sentence,  and  continued  to  pollute 
the  church  with  their  unhallowed  ministry.5  Soon  after  this  Anselm 


1  Anselmi  Lib.  in.  Epist.  62. 

2  D’Achery  Spicileg.  III.  434. 

3  Paschalis  PP.  II.  Epist.  lxxiv. — 
Anselmi  Lib.  iv.  Epist.  41. 

4  Simeon  Dunelmens.  ap.  Pagi  IY. 
348. 

5  See  tbe  confirmation  of  excom¬ 
munication  in  which  St.  Anselm  ex¬ 
haled  his  fiery  indignation  at  those 
who  continued  with  “bestiali  insania” 
to  defy  the  authorities  of  the  church. 
(Anselmi  Lib.  in.  Epist.  112.) 

Anselm  was  not  entirely  without 
assistance  in  his  efforts.  One  of  his 


monks,  Eeginald,  of  the  great  monas¬ 
tery  of  Canterbury,  wrote  a  fearfully 
diffuse  paraphrase,  in  Leonine  verse, 
of  the  life  of  St.  Malchus.  It  was  an 
evil-minded  generation,  indeed,  that 
could  resist  such  a  denunciation  of  mar¬ 
riage  as  that  pronounced  by  the  saint — 

Plenum  sorde  thorum  subeam  plenumque 
dolorum  ? 

Plenus,  ait,  tenebris  thalamus  sordet  mu- 
liebris. 

Displicet  amplexus,  horror  mihi  copula, 
sexus. 

Conjugium  vile,  vilescit  sponsa,  cubile. 
Nolo  thorum  talem,  desidero  spiritualem. 

(Croke’s  Rhyming  Latin  Yerse,  p.  67.) 


276 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


0 

fell  into  disfavor  with  the  king  and  was  exiled.  His  absence  prom¬ 
ised  immunity,  and  the  clergy  were  not  slow  to  avail  themselves  of 
it.  In  1104  one  of  his  friends,  in  writing  to  him,  bewails  the  utter 
demoralization  of  the  kingdom,  of  which  the  worst  manifestation  was 
that  priests  still  continued  to  marry ;  and  two  years  later  another 
letter  informs  him  that  those  wlio  had  apparently  reformed  their  evil 
ways  were  all  returning  to  their  previous  life  of  iniquity.  Finally, 
Henry  I.  resolved  to  turn  to  account  this  clerical  backsliding,  as  a 
financial  expedient  to  recruit  his  exhausted  treasury.  All  who  were 
suspected  of  disobedience  to  the  canons  of  the  council  of  London 
were  seized  and  tried,  and  the  property  of  those  who  could  be  proved 
guilty  w’as  confiscated.  By  this  time  Anselm  had  been  reconciled 
to  the  king,  and  he  promptly  interfered  to  check  so  gross  a  violation 
of  ecclesiastical  immunity.  His  remonstrances  were  met  by  Henry 
with  well-feigned  surprise,  and  finally  the  matter  was  compromised 
by  discharging  those  who  had  not  been  fined,  while  those  who  had 
been  forced  to  pay  were  promised  three  years’  undisturbed  possession 
of  their  positions.1 

That  it  was  impossible  to  effect  suddenly  so  great  a  change  in  the 
habits  and  lives  of  the  Anglican  clergy  was,  indeed,  admitted  by 
Paschal  II.  himself,  when,  in  1107,  he  wrote  to  Anselm  concerning 
the  questions  connected  with  the  children  of  priests.  While  remind¬ 
ing  him  of  the  rules  of  the  church,  he  adds  that  as,  in  England,  the 
larger  and  better  portion  of  the  clergy  fall  within  the  scope  of  the 
prohibition,  he  grants  to  the  primate  power  of  dispensation,  by 
which,  in  view  of  the  sad  necessity  of  the  times,  he  can  admit  to  the 
sacred  offices  those  born  during  their  parents’  priesthood,  who  are 
fitted  for  it  by  their  education  and  purity  of  life.  A  second  epistle 
on  the  same  subject  attests  the  perplexity  of  the  pope,  recalling  to 
Anselm’s  recollection  his  former  injunctions,  and  recommending  that, 
as  there  was  no  personal  guilt  involved,  those  of  the  proscribed  class 
who  were  in  orders  should,  if  worthy  of  their  positions,  be  allowed 
to  retain  them,  without  the  privilege  of  advancement.2  The  ques¬ 
tion,  indeed,  was  hotly  debated.  There  is  extant  a  letter  written 
about  this  time  by  Thibaut  of  Etampes,  a  dignitary  of  Oxford,  to  a 
certain  Rosceline,  who  with  more  zeal  than  discretion  had  promul¬ 
gated  the  doctrine  that  the  sons  of  priests  were  canonically  ineligible 


1  Eadmer.  Hist.  Novor.  Lib.  iv. — Anselmi  Lib.  in.  Epist.  109. 

2  Wilkins,  I.  378-80. — Paschalis  II.  Epist.  221. 


HENRY  I.  UNDERTAKES  A  REFORMATION.  277 

to  ordination.  Thibaut  characterizes  this  as  not  only  an  innovation, 
but  a  blasphemy,  and  seems  utterly  unconscious  that  there  was  any 
authority  for  such  a  rule.1 

It  may  be  remarked  that  thus  far  the  proceedings  of  the  reformers 
were  directed  solely  against  the  marriage  of  ecclesiastics.  It  may 
possibly  be  that  this  arose  from  general  conjugal  virtue,  and  that, 
satisfied  with  the  privilege,  no  other  disorders  prevailed  among  the 
clergy ;  but  it  is  more  probable  that  the  heresy  of  marriage  was  so 
heinous  in  the  eyes  of  the  sacerdotalists,  that  it  rendered  all  other 
sins  venial,  and  that  such  other  sins  might  be  tacitly  passed  over  in 
the  endeavor  to  put  an  end  to  the  greater  enormity.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  stubborn  wilfulness  of  the  offenders  only  provoked  increas¬ 
ing  rigor  on  the  part  of  the  authorities.  We  have  seen  that  the 
council  of  1102  produced  little  result,  and  that  when  the  secular 
power  interfered  to  enforce  its  canons,  the  church,  jealous  of  its 
privileges,  protested,  so  that  many  priests  retained  their  wives,  and 
marriage  was  still  openly  practised.  King  Henry,  therefore,  at 
length,  in  1108,  summoned  another  council  to  assemble  in  London, 
where  he  urged  the  bishops  to  prosecute  the  good  work,  and  pledged 
his  power  to  their  support.2  Fortified  by  this  and  by  the  consent  of 
the  barons,  they  promulgated  a  series  of  ten  canons,  whose  stringent 
nature  and  liberal  denunciation  of  penalties  prove  that  the  prelates 
felt  themselves  strengthened  by  the  royal  co-operation  and  thus  able 
to  compel  obedience.  The  Nicene  canon  was  declared  the  unalterable 
law  of  the  church ;  those  ecclesiastics  who  had  disregarded  the  decrees 
of  the  previous  council  were  debarred  from  performing  their  functions 
if  longer  contumacious ;  any  priest  requiring  to  see  his  wife  was  only 
to  do  so  in  the  open  air  and  in  the  presence  of  two  legitimate  wit¬ 
nesses  ;  accusations  of  guilt  were  to  be  met  by  regular  canonical 
purgation,  a  priest  requiring  six  compurgators,  a  deacon  four,  and  a 
subdeacon  two,  each  of  his  own  order.  Disobedience  to  these  canons 
was  declared  punishable  with  deprivation  of  function  and  benefice, 
expulsion  from  the  church,  and  infamy.  Only  eight  days  of  grace 
were  allowed ;  further  persistence  in  wrong-doing  being  visited  with 
instant  excommunication,  and  confiscation  to  the  bishops  of  the  pri¬ 
vate  property  of  the  transgressors  and  of  their  women,  together  with 


1  D’Acher)T  Spicileg.  III.  448. 

2  Eadmeri  Hist.  Novor.  Lib.  iv. 


278  NORMAN  ENGLAND. 

the  persons  of  the  latter.  A  very  significant  clause,  moreover,  shows 
that  grasping  officials  had  discovered  the  speculative  value  of  previ¬ 
ous  injunctions,  and  that  the  degrading  custom  of  selling  indulgence 
was  already  in  common  use,  for  the  council  required  of  all  arch¬ 
deacons  and  deans,  under  penalty  of  forfeiture,  an  oath  that  they 
would  not  receive  money  for  conniving  at  infractions  of  the  rule, 
nor  permit  priests  who  kept  women  to  celebrate  mass  or  to  employ 
vicars  to  officiate  for  them.1 

From  the  account  of  the  historian,  we  may  assume  these  to  be 
rather  acts  of  parliament  than  canons  of  a  council,  and  that  the 
assembly  was  convened  for  the  special  purpose  of  devising  measures 
for  subduing  the  recalcitrant  clergy.  The  temporal  power  was  thus 
pledged  to  enforce  the  regulations,  and  as  so  enterprising  and  reso¬ 
lute  a  monarch  as  Henry  had  undertaken  the  reform,  there  can  be 
little  doubt  that  he  prosecuted  it  with  vigor.  Anselm  died  in  1109, 
and  the  clergy  rejoiced  in  the  hope  that  their  persecution  would  cease 
with  the  removal  of  their  persecutor,  but  the  king  proceeded  to  en¬ 
force  the  regulations  of  the  council  of  London  with  more  vigor  than 
ever,  and  soon  obtained  at  least  an  outward  show  of  obedience. 
Eadmer  darkly  intimates  that  this  resulted  in  a  great  increase  of 
shocking  crimes  committed  with  those  relatives  whose  residence  was 
allowed,  and  he  is  at  some  pains  to  argue  that  Anselm  and  his 
attempted  reforms  were  not  responsible  for  an  effect  so  little  contem¬ 
plated  in  their  well-meant  endeavors.  Finally,  the  ardor  of  the 
king  cooled  off ;  ecclesiastical  officials  were  found  readily  accessible 
to  bribes  for  permitting  female  intercourse,  and  those  wffio  had  grown 
tired  of  the  wives  from  whom  they  had  been  separated  found  no 
difficulty  in  forming  more  desirable  unions  with  new  ones.  Eadmer 
sorrowfully  adds  that  by  this  time  there  were  few  indeed  who  con¬ 
tinued  to  preserve  the  purity  with  which  Anselm  had  labored  so 
strenuously  to  adorn  his  clergy.2 

The  evil  influences  of  this  laxity  in  the  Anglican  church  were  not 
altogether  confined  to  Britain.  At  that  period  the  Swedish  bishoprics 
were  frequently  filled  by  Englishmen,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that 
from  them  was  derived  the  laxity  which,  as  we  have  seen,  at  a  later 
period,  caused  the  Swedes  to  be  regarded  as  heretics  adhering  to  the 
Greek  schism.  An  incident  occurring  about  this  time  shows  the 


1  Eadmeri  Hist.  Novor.  Lib.  iv. 

2  Eadmeri  Hist.  Novor.  Lib.  iv. 


CARDINAL  JOHN  OF  CREMA. 


279 


wisdom  of  the  church  in  her  endeavors  to  sunder  the  earthly  ties  of 
her  ministers.  An  English  priest  named  Edw^ard  was  promoted  to 
the  Swedish  episcopate  of  Scaren.  Unluckily,  he  had  left  a  wife 
behind  him  in  England,  and,  after  a  short  residence  in  his  new  dig¬ 
nity  had  enabled  him  to  collect  together  the  treasures  of  his  see,  he 
absconded  with  them  to  his  spouse,  leaving  his  diocese  widowed  and 
penniless.1 

At  length  the  condition  of  the  church  in  England  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  pontiffs  who  had  bestowed  so  much  fruitless  energy 
on  the  morals  of  the  Continental  priesthood ;  and  Honorius  II.  sent 
Cardinal  John  of  Crema  to  England,  for  the  purpose  of  restoring 
its  discipline.  In  September,  1126,  the  legate  held  a  council  in 
London,  where  he  caused  the  adoption  of  a  canon  menacing  with 
degradation  all  those  in  orders  who  did  not  abstain  from  the  society 
of  their  wives,  or  of  other  women  liable  to  suspicion ; 2  and  the  ex¬ 
pressions  employed  show  that  previous  legislation  had  been  altogether 
nugatory.  That  the  cardinal’s  endeavors  excited  the  opposition  of 
at  least  a  powerful  portion  of  the  clergy  is  fairly  deducible  from  the 
unlucky  adventure  which  put  a  sudden  termination  to  his  mission. 
After  fiercely  denouncing  the  concubines  of  priests  and  expatiating 
on  the  burning  shame  that  the  body  of  Christ  should  be  made  by 
one  who  had  but  just  left  the  side  of  a  harlot,  he  was  that  very  night 
surprised  in  the  company  of  a  courtesan,  though  he  had  on  the  same 
day  celebrated  mass ;  and  the  suggestion  that  he  had  been  entrapped 
by  his  enemies,  while  it  did  not  palliate  his  guilt,  may  be  assumed 
to  indicate  the  power  and  determination  of  those  who  opposed  his 
reforms.3 


1  Messenii  Chron.  Episcoporum  per 
Sueciam  etc.  p.  76  (Stockholmiae,  1611). 

2  Concil.  Londiniens.  ann.  1126  c.  13 
(Wilkins,  I.  408). 

3  Henric.  Huntingd.  Lib.  vn. — 
Matt.  Paris  ann.  1125.  —  Baronius 
(ann.  1125,  No.  12)  endeavors  to  dis¬ 
prove  the  story,  but  is  only  able  to 
offer  general  negative  allegations,  of 
but  little  weight  when  opposed  to  the 
testimony  of  a  contemporary  like 
Henry  of  Huntingdon,  who  speaks  of 
it  as  a  matter  of  public  notoriety, 
which  covered  the  cardinal  with  dis-  I 
grace  and  drove  him  from  England. 

Such  conduct  was  a  favorite  theme  ! 
of  objurgation  with  the  ascetics  of  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries — 


Certe  tu  qui  missam  dicis 
Post  amplexum  meretricis, 

Potaberis  ab  inimicis 
Liquore  sulphuris  et  picis. 

(Du  Meril,  Poesies  Latines,  p.  133.) 

So  also,  among  the  poems  which 
pass  under  the  name  of  Golias  Epis- 
copus  is  one  of  fierce  invective  di¬ 
rected  against  the  priests,  in  which 
this  is  one  of  the  principal  accusa¬ 
tions — 

0  sacerdos,  haec  responde, 

Qui  frequenter  et  jocunde 
Cum  uxore  dormis,  unde 
Mane  surgens,  missam  dicis, 

Corpus  Christi  benedicis, 

Post  amplexus  meretricis 
Minus  quam  tu  peccatricis. 

■5fc  vir 


280 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


The  energy  of  the  reformers  and  the  stubborn  obstinacy  of  the 
clergy  are  alike  manifested  by  the  council  of  Westminster,  held  the 
following  year,  -which  found  it  necessary  to  repeat  the  prohibition 
and  to  guard  it  with  stringent  provisions,  based  upon  those  of  1108.1 
This,  however,  proved  as  ineffectual  as  its  predecessors,  and  another 
effort  was  made  the  next  year  under  auspices  which  promised  a  hap¬ 
pier  result.  King  Henry  seemed  suddenly  to  recover  the  holy  zeal 
which  had  lain  dormant  for  a  score  of  years,  and  in  the  summer  of 
1129  he  convened  a  great  assembly  of  all  the  bishops,  archdeacons, 
abbots,  priors,  and  canons  of  England,  who  found  that  they  were 
summoned  to  meet  for  the  purpose  of  putting  an  end  to  the  im¬ 
morality  of  the  clergy.  After  long  discussion,  it  was  decreed  that 
all  who  should  not  put  away  their  wives  by  St.  Andrew’s  day  (No¬ 
vember  30th)  should  be  deprived  of  their  functions,  their  churches, 
and  their  houses ;  and  the  assembly  separated,  intrusting  to  the 
zealous  sovereign  the  execution  of  the  decree.  Perhaps  Henry 
remembered  how  St.  Anselm  had  interfered  in  1106  to  protect  the 
guilty  clergy  from  the  royal  extortioners ;  perhaps  the  experience  of 
his  long  reign  had  shown  him  the  fruitlessness  of  endeavoring  to 
impose  an  impossible  virtue  on  carnal-minded  men.  His  exchequer, 
as  usual,  was  in  danger  of  collapse.  The  whole  transaction  may 
have  been  a  deeply-laid  scheme  to  extort  money,  or  the  sudden 
promptings  of  temptation  may  have  been  too  powerful  for  his  self- 
denial — who  now  can  tell  ?  We  only  know  that  he  at  once  put  into 
action  an  extended  system  of  u  cullagium,’'  and  having,  by  the  blind 
simplicity  of  his  prelates,  the  temporalities  of  nearly  all  the  minor 
clergy  in  his  power,  he  proceeded  to  traffic  in  exemptions  shamelessly 
and  on  the  largest  scale.  As  a  financial  device,  the  plan  was  a  good 
one ;  he  realized  a  vast  sum  of  money,  and  his  afflicted  priests  were 
at  least  able  to  show  their  superiors  a  royal  license  to  marry  or  to 
keep  their  concubines  in  peace.2 


The  repetition  of  almost  identical  enactments,  year  after  year, 
with  corresponding  infinitesimal  results,  grows  wearisome  and  mo- 


Plenus  sorde,  plenus  mendis, 

Ad  autorem  manus  tendis, 

Quern  contempnis,  quern  offendis, 
Meretrici  durn  ascendis. 

***** 

Quali  corde.  quali  ore 

Corpus  Christi,  cum  cruore, 
Tractas,  surgens  de  foetore, 
Dignus  plagis  et  tortore. 


Mapes’s  Poems  (Camd.  Soc.  Ed.  pp. 
49-50). 

1  Concil.  Westmonast.  ann.  1127 
c.  5,  6,  7  (Wilkins,  I.  410). 

2  Henric.  Huntingd.  Lib.  vri. — 
Anglo  Saxon  Cliron.  ann.  1129. — 
Matt.  Paris  ann.  1129. 


DISORDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


281 


notorious.  If,  therefore,  I  refer  to  the  synod  of  Westminster,  held 
in  1188,  by  the  papal  legate  Alberic,  Bishop  of  Ostia,  which  de¬ 
prived  of  function  and  benefice  all  married  and  concubinary  ecclesi¬ 
astics,1  it  is  only  to  observe  that  no  notice  was  taken  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  invalidity  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  which  at  that  period  Inno¬ 
cent  II.  was  engaged  in  promulgating.  So,  if  I  allude  to  an  epistle 
of  Lucius  II.  in  1144,  reprehending  the  general  English  custom  by 
which  sons  succeeded  to  the  churches  of  their  fathers,  it  is  merely 
to  chronicle  the  commencement  of  the  direct  efforts  of  the  popes, 
fruitlessly  continued  during  the  remainder  of  the  century,  to  abolish 
that  wide-spread  and  seemingly  ineradicable  abuse.2 

What  was  the  condition  of  the  church  resulting  from  these  pro¬ 
longed  and  persistent  efforts  may  be  guessed  from  one  or  two  exam¬ 
ples.  When,  in  1139,  Nigel,  Bishop  of  Ely,  revolted  against  King 
Stephen,  he  intrusted  the  defence  of  his  castle  of  Devizes  to  his  con¬ 
cubine,  Maud  of  Ramsbury.  She  bravely  fulfilled  her  charge  and 
repulsed  the  assaults  of  the  king,  until  he  bethought  him  of  a  way 
to  compel  a  surrender.  Obtaining  possession  of  Roger,  son  of  Maud 
and  Nigel,  the  unhappy  youth  was  brought  before  the  walls,  and 
preparations  were  made  to  hang  him  in  his  mother’s  sight.  At  this 
her  courage  gave  way,  and  she  capitulated  at  once.3  Though  the 
monkish  chronicler  stigmatizes  Maud  as  “pellex  episcopi,”  she  may 
probably  have  been  his  wife — in  either  case  the  publicity  of  the  con¬ 
nection  is  a  sufficient  commentary  on  the  morals  and  manners  of  the 
age  which  took  no  exception  to  the  elevation  of  Richard  Fitz-Neal, 
another  son  of  the  same  reverend  prelate,  to  the  bishopric  of  London 
and  to  the  post  of  treasurer  to  King  Henry  II. 

If  this  be  attributed  to  the  unbridled  turbulence  of  Stephen’s 
reign,  we  may  turn  to  the  comparatively  calmer  times  of  Henry  II., 
when  Alexander  III.,  amid  his  ceaseless  efforts  to  restore  the  church 
discipline  of  England,  in  1171,  ordered  the  Bishops  of  Exeter  and 
Worcester  and  the  Abbot  of  Feversham  to  examine  and  report  as  to 
the  evil  reputation  of  Clarembald,  abbot-elect  of  St.  Augustine’s  of 
Canterbury.  In  the  execution  of  this  duty  they  found  that  that 
venerable  patriarch  had  seventeen  bastards  in  one  village ;  purity  he 
ridiculed  as  an  impossibility,  while  even  licentiousness  had  no  attrac- 


1  Concil.  Westmonast.  ann.  1138 
c.  8  ("Wilkins,  I.  415). 

2  Rymer,  Fcedera  Tom.  I.  ann.  1144. 


—  Post.  Concil.  Lateran,  P.  xix. 
passim. — Lib.  I.  Tit.  17  Extra. 

3  Orderic  Vital.  P.  in.  Lib.  xiii. 
c.  20. 


282 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


tion  for  his  exhausted  senses  unless  spiced  with  the  zest  of  publicity.1 
That  a  man  whose  profligacy  was  so  openly  and  shamelessly  defiant 
could  be  elected  to  the  highest  place  in  the  oldest  and  most  honored 
religious  community  in  England  is  a  fact  which  lends  color  to  the 
assertion  of  a  writer  of  the  time  of  King  John,  that  clergy  and  laity 
were  indistinguishably  bad,2  and  perhaps  justifies  the  anecdote  told 
of  Hugh,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  assumed  that  the  clergy  were 
much  worse  than  the  laity.3  How  little  these  scandals  shocked  the 
public  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  it  required  papal  interference  to 
cause  the  reformation  of  the  nunnery  of  Avesbury.  The  abbess 
had  borne  three  children  and  the  nuns,  as  the  chronicler  informs  us, 
were  worse  than  their  superior,  but  when  Alexander  forced  an 
investigation  no  canonical  punishment  was  inflicted  on  the  guilty. 
Such  of  the  nuns  as  promised  to  live  chastely  in  future  were  allowed 
to  remain,  and  the  rest  "were  simply  dismissed,  while  the  abbess  was 
pensioned  liberally  with  ten  marks  a  year  to  preserve  her  from  dis¬ 
grace  and  want.  The  vacancies  thus  created  were  filled  with  nuns 
from  Fontevraud,  who  proved  to  be  as  bad  as  those  "whom  they 
replaced.4  The  same  insensibility  is  manifested  in  a  legal  transac¬ 
tion  of  the  period,  when  Witgar,  the  priest  of  Mendlesham,  desired 
to  secure  the  reversion  of  his  benefice  to  his  son  Nicholas,  and  ap¬ 
plied  to  the  patron  of  his  church,  Martin,  Abbot  of  Battle  Abbey, 
who  agreed  to  conform  to  his  wishes  on  condition  that  the  annual 
payment  exacted  from  the  church  in  question  should  be  increased 


1  Fluit  semine  et  hinnit  in  feminas, 
adeo  impudens  ut  libidinem,  nisi  quam 
publicaverit,  voluptuosam  esse  non 
reputet.  .  .  .  Fornicationis  abusum 
comparat  necessitati.  Proletarius  est 
adeo  quod  paucis  annis  ei  soboles  tanta 
succrevit  ut  patriarcharum  seriem  ante- 
cedat. — Joann.  Saresberiens.  Epist.  310. 
Well  might  Alexander,  in  ordering  his 
ejection,  say  “  ipsum  invenerint  tot  ex- 
cessibus  et  criminibus  publicis  irretitum, 
quod  per  eorum  nobis  litteras  recitata 
auribus  nostris  nimium  praestiterunt 
taedium  et  dolorem.” — Elmharn  Hist. 
Monast.  August,  p.  413. 

2  Crescit  raalorum  cumulus, 

Est  sacerdos  ut  populus, 

Currunt  ad  illicitum, 

Uterque  juxta  libitum 

Audax  et  imperterritus. 

(Wright,  Polit.  Songs  of  England,  p.  9.) 


And  another  indignant  churchman 
exclaims : — 

Qui  sunt  qui  ecclesias  vendunt  et  mercan- 
tur  ? 

Qui  sunt  fornicarii?  Qui  sunt  qui  moe- 
chantur  ? 

Qui  naturam  transvolant  et  abominantur? 
Qui?  clerici;  a  nobis  non  longe  extra 
petantur. 

Mapes’s  Poems,  pp.  156-7. 

3  A  woman  applied  to  Bishop  Hugh 
for  advice  “  super  impotentia  mariti, 
quia  debitum  ei  reddere  non  poterat,” 
when  the  prelate  gravely  replied,  “  Fa- 
ciamus  ergo  si  vis  eum  sacerdotem,  et 
statim  illo  in  opere,  reddita  sibi  facili¬ 
tate,  proculdubio  potens  efficietur.” — 
Girald.  Cambrens.  Gemm.  Eccles.  Dist. 
II.  c.  xviii. 

4  Benedicti  Abbatis  Gesta  Regis 
Ilenr.  II.  T.  I.  pp.  135-6;  T.  II.  p. 

xxx.  (M.  R.  Series.) 


VENALITY  OF  THE  OFFICIALS. 


288 


from  ten  shillings  to  forty.  Witgar  agreed,  and  on  an  appointed 
day,  accompanied  by  his  son,  he  met  the  abbot  and  his  attendants  at 
Colchester,  where  oaths  were  publicly  interchanged  and  a  formal 
agreement  was  entered  into.1 

The  efforts  of  Alexander  and  his  successors  were  seconded  by  fre¬ 
quent  national  and  local  synods,  to  whose  special  injunctions  it  is 
scarcely  worth  while  to  refer  in  full.  One  noticeable  point  about 
them,  however,  is  that  the  term  “wife”  disappears,  and  is  replaced 
by  “concubina”  or  “focaria” — the  latter  meaning  a  person  who  was 
a  permanent  occupant  of  the  priest’s  hearth,  but  was  not  recognized 
by  the  authorities  as  a  lawful  wife.  Deans  and  archdeacons  were 
enjoined  to  hunt  up  these  illegal  companions,  but  from  the  frequency 
of  the  injunctions,  we  may  safely  conclude  that  the  search  was  not 
often  successful,  and  that  the  officials  found  the  duty  assigned  to 
them  too  difficult  or  too  unprofitable  for  execution.  That  it  was  not 
impossible,  however,  when  earnestly  undertaken,  is  shown  by  the 
readiness  with  which  King  John  unearthed  the  unfortunate  creatures 
when  it  suited  his  policy  to  do  so.  During  the  long  dispute  over  the 
election  of  Giraldus  Cambrensis  to  the  see  of  St.  David’s,  the  king, 
who  was  resolved  that  no  Welshman  should  hold  that  preferment, 
instructed  his  officers,  in  1202,  to  seize  the  women  of  all  the  cathedral 
chapter  who  persisted  in  supporting  Giraldus.2  The  measure  was 
doubtless  an  efficacious  one,  and  he  repeated  it  when,  in  1208,  he 
persecuted  the  clergy  in  his  blind  impotence  of  wrath  at  the  interdict 
set  upon  his  kingdom  by  Innocent  III.  Discerning  in  these  quasi- 
conjugal  relations  the  tenderest  spot  in  which  to  strike  those  who  had 
rebelled  against  his  authority  by  obeying  the  interdict,  and  at  the 
same  time  as  the  surest  and  readiest  means  of  extorting  money, 
among  his  other  schemes  of  spoliation  he  caused  all  these  women  to 
be  seized,  and  then  forced  the  unfortunate  churchmen  to  buy  their 
partners  back  at  exorbitant  prices.3 


1  Chron.  Monast.  de  Bello,  London, 
1846,  pp.  142-3. 

2  Haddan  &  Stubbs’s  Councils  of 
Great  Britain  I.  423-4. 

3  Matt.  Paris  ann.  1208. 

Perhaps  it  is  to  John’s  experience  in 
this  matter  that  may  be  attributed  the 
fact  that  when,  in  1214,  he  entered  into 
a  league  with  his  knight-errant  nephew, 
the  Emperor  Otho  IV.,  against  Philip 


Augustus,  they  also  declared  war  against 
Innocent  III.,  and  proposed  to  carry 
out  a  gigantic  scheme  of  spoliation  by 
enriching,  from  ecclesiastical  property, 
all  who  might  rally  to  their  standard. 
They  proclaimed  their  intention  of 
humbling  the  church,  reducing  the 
numbers  of  the  clergy,  stripping  those 
who  were  left  of  all  their  temporalities, 
and  leaving  them  only  moderate  sti¬ 
pends.  Both  John  and  Otho  had  been 


284 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


The  ease,  indeed,  with  which  the  eyes  of  the  officials  were  blinded 
to  that  which  was  patent  to  the  public  was  the  subject  of  constantly 
recurring  legislation,  the  reiteration  and  increasing  violence  of  which 
bears  irrefragable  testimony  at  once  to  its  necessity  and  its  impotence. 
Not  only  in  grave  synods  and  pastorals  was  the  abuse  reprehended 
and  deplored,  but  it  offered  too  favorable  a  subject  for  popular  anim¬ 
adversion  to  escape  the  shafts  of  satire.  In  the  preceding  century, 
Thomas  a  Becket,  in  a  vehement  attack  upon  simony,  includes  this 
among  the  many  manifestations  of  that  multiform  sin — 

Symon  auffert,  Symon  donat ; 

Hunc  expellit,  hunc  coronat ; 

Hunc  circumdat  gravi  peste, 

Ilium  nuptiali  veste.1 

• 

There  were  few  more  popular  poems  in  the  Middle  Ages  than  the 
“Apocalypsis  Goliae,’’  the  more  than  doubtful  authorship  of  which, 
at  the  close  of  the  twelfth  or  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century,  is 
claimed  for  Walter  Mapes  in  England  and  Gautier  de  Chatillon  in 
France ;  and  the  enduring  reputation  of  which  is  attested  by  an 
English  version  as  late  as  the  sixteenth  century.  The  author,  who¬ 
ever  he  be,  inveighing  against  the  evil  courses  of  the  archdeacons, 
assumes  that  the  extortion  of  the  “cullagium"  was  almost  universal. 


Seductarn  nuntii  fraude  praeambuli 
Capit  focariam,  ut  per  cubiculi 
Fortunam  habeat  fortunam  loculi, 

Et  per  vehiculum  omen  vehiculi. 

Decano  prsecipit  quod  si  presbiteri 
Per  genitivos  scit  dativos  fieri, 

Accusans  faciat  vocatum  conteri, 

Ablatis  fratribus  a  porta  inferi.2 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Peter  de  Vinea  also 
has  his  fling  at  the  same  corruption,  and  though  the  part  he  took  in 
the  fierce  quarrels  between  his  master  Frederic  II.  and  the  papacy 


under  excommunication,  and  could 
speak  feelingly  of  the  overweening  ' 
power  and  abuses  of  the  church,  whose 
members  they  characterize  as  “genus 
hoc  pigmm  et  fruges  consumere  natum, 
quod  otia  ducit,  quodque  sub  tecto 
marcet  et  umbra,  qui  frustra  vivunt, 
quorum  omnis  labor  in  hoc  est,  ut 
Baccho  Venerique  vacent,  quibus  cra- 
pula  obesis  poris  colla  inflat,  ventresque 


abdomine  onerat.”  (Liinig.  Cod.  Dip- 
lom.  Italia?  I.  34).  A  few  weeks  later 
the  Bridge  of  Bouvines  put  a  sudden 
end  to  this  prosperous  plan  of  reforma¬ 
tion. 

1  Du  Meril,  Poesies  Pop.  Latines,  p. 
179. 

2  Mapes’s  Poems,  p.  10. 


PERSISTENCE  IN  MARRIAGE. 


285 


renders  him  perhaps  a  prejudiced  witness,  still  his  ample  experience 
of  the  disorders  of  the  church  makes  him  an  experienced  one. 

Non  utuntur  clerici  nostri  vestimentis  : 

Sed  tenent  focarias,  quod  clamor  est  gentis — 

— Dehinc  reum  convocant,  et,  turba  rejecta, 

Dicunt :  Ista  crimina  tibi  sunt  objecta  ; 

Pone  libras  quindecim  in  nostra  collecta, 

Et  tua  flagitia  non  erunt  detecta. 

Reus  dat  denarios,  Fratres  scriptum  radunt ; 

Sic  infames  plurimi  per  nummos  evadunt : 

Qui  totam  pecuniam  quam  petunt  non  tradunt, 

Sirnul  in  infamiam  et  in  poenam  cadunt.1 


The  example  which  King  John  had  set,  however  instructive,  was 
not  appreciated  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  and  the  “focariae  ” 
were  allowed  to  remain  virtually  undisturbed,  at  least  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  render  them  almost  universal.  Although  by  rigid 
churchmen  they  were  regarded  as  mere  concubines,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  tie  between  them  and  the  priests  was  of  a  binding 
nature,  which  appears  to  have  wanted  none  of  the  rites  essential  to 
its  entire  respectability.  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  who  died  at  an  ad¬ 
vanced  age  about  the  year  1220,  speaks  of  these  companions  being 
publicly  maintained  by  nearly  all  the  parish  priests  in  England  and 
Wales.  They  arranged  to  have  their  benefices  transmitted  to  their 
sons,  while  their  daughters  were  married  to  the  sons  of  other  priests, 
thus  establishing  an  hereditary  sacerdotal  caste  in  which  marriage 
appears  to  have  been  a  matter  of  course.2  In  1202  the  Bishop  of 


1  Du  Meril,  op.  cit.  p.  171. 

2  Filius  autem,  more  sacerdotum 
parochialium  Angliae  fere  cunctorum, 
damnabili  quidem  et  detestabili,  pub- 
licam  secum  babebat  comitem  indi- 
viduam,  et  in  foco  focariam  et  in  cubi- 
culo  concubinam. — Girald.  Cambrens. 
Specul.  Eccles.  Dist.  iii.  c.  8.  (Girald. 
Opp.  III.  129.)  However  Giraldus  and 
the  severer  churchmen  might  stigma¬ 
tize  these  companions  as  concubines, 
they  were  evidently  united  in  the 
bonds  of  matrimony.  He  says  him¬ 
self,  respecting  Wales,  “Nosse  te  novi 
.  .  .  canonicos  Menevenses  fere  cunctos, 
maxime  vero  Walensicos,  publicos  for- 
nicarios  et  concubinarios  esse,  sub  alis 
ecclesias  cathedralis  et  tanquam  in  ipso 
ejusdem  gremio  focarias  suas  cum  ob- 
stetricibus  et  nutricibus  atque  cunabulis 
in  laribus  et  penetralibus  exhibentes. 
.  .  Adeo  quidem  ut  sicut  patres  eorum 


ipsos  ibi  genuerunt  et  promoverunt,  sic 
et  ipsi  more  consimili  prolem  ibidem 
suscitant,  tam  in  vitiis  sibi  quam  bene- 
ficiis  succedaneam.  Filiis  namque  suis 
:  statim  cum  adulti  fuerint  et  plene  pu- 
i  bertatis  annos  excesserint,  concanoni- 
I  corum  suorum  Alias,  ut  sic  firmiori 
foedere  sanguinis  scilicet  et  affinitatis 
jure  jungantur,  quasi  maritali  copula 
dari  procurant.  Postmodum  autem 
.  .  .  canonicas  suas  filiis  suis  conferri 
per  cessionem  non  inefficaciter  elabo- 
rant.”  (De  Jure  et  Statu  Menev. 
Eccles.  Dist.  i.)  That  this  condition 
of  affairs  was  not  confined  to  the 
canons  of  cathedral  churches  is  evi- 
I  dent  from  his  general  remarks  in  the 
Gemm.  Eccles.  Dist.  n.  cap.  xxiii. 

His  treatise  De  Statu  Menevens. 
Eccles.  was  written  after  1215,  and 
therefore  subsequent  to  the  death  of 
Innocent  III. 


286 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


Exeter  complained  to  Innocent  III.  of  the  numerous  sons  of  parish 
priests  and  vicars  who  seized  their  churches  and  claimed  to  hold 
them  of  right,  actually  appealing  to  Rome  when  he  sought  to  interfere 
with  them.  Innocent  of  course  ordered  their  removal  and  subjection 
to  discipline  without  appeal ;  but  the  evil  continued,  and  in  1205  we 
find  him  writing  on  the  subject  to  the  Bishop  of  Winchester  whom 
he  required  to  eject  the  sons  of  priests  who  in  many  cases  held  their 
father’s  benefices.1  The  propriety  of  the  connection,  and  the  heredi¬ 
tary  ecclesiastical  functions  of  the  offspring  are  quaintly  alluded  to  in 
a  poem  of  the  period,  wherein  a  logician  takes  a  priest  to  task  for 
entertaining  such  a  partner — 

L. — Et  pra?  tot  innumeris  quse  frequentas  inalis, 

Est  tibi  presbvtera  plus  exitialis. 

P. — Malo  cum  presbytera  pulchra  fornicari, 

Servituros  domino  filios  lucrari, 

Quam  vagas  satellites  per  antra  sectari : 

Est  inhonestissimum  sic  dehonestari.2 

Even  the  holy  virgins,  spouses  of  Christ,  seem  to  have  claimed 
and  enjoyed  the  largest  liberty.  To  this  period  is  attributed  a  homily 
addressed  to  nuns,  which  earnestly  dissuades  them  from  leaving  their 
blessed  state  and  subjecting  themselves  to  the  cares  and  toils  insep¬ 
arable  from  matrimony.  The  writer  appeals  to  no  rules  of  ecclesi¬ 
astical  law  that  could  be  enforced  to  prevent  them  from  following 
their  choice,  but  labors  drearily  to  prove  that  they  would  not  better 
their  condition,  either  in  this  world  or  the  next,  by  forsaking  their 
heavenly  bridegroom  for  an  earthly  one. — “  And  of  godes  brude.  and 
his  freo  dohter.  for  ba  to  gederes  ha  is  ;  bicumeth  theow  under  mon 
and  his  threl  to  don  al  and  drehen  that  him  liketh.”3 

Innocent  III.  had  not  overlooked  such  a  state  of  discipline,  espe¬ 
cially  after  the  transactions  between  himself  and  John  had  rendered 
him  the  suzerain  of  England,  and  doubly  responsible  for  the  morals 
of  the  Anglican  Church.  Thus  as  early  as  1203  we  find  him  ex¬ 
pressing  to  the  Bishop  of  Norwich  his  surprise  that  priests  in  his 
diocese  contend  that  they  can  retain  their  benefices  after  having  sol- 

v  O 


1  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  v.  66;  vin.  147. 

2  De  presbytero  et  logico.  Mapes’s  Poems,  p.  256. 

3  Hali  Meidenhad,  p.  7.  (Early  English  Text  Society,  1866.) 


FRUITLESS  LEGISLATION. 


287 


cmnly  contracted  marriage  in  the  face  of  the  church.  All  such  are 
peremptorily  ordered  to  be  removed  without  appeal,  either  by  the 
bishop  himself,  or  by  his  superior  in  cases  in  which  he  had  personally 
conferred  the  preferment.1  His  zealous  efforts  to  effect  an  impossible 
reform  are  chronicled  by  a  rhymer  of  the  period,  who  enters  fully 
into  the  dismay  of  the  good  pastors  at  the  prospect  of  the  innova¬ 
tion,  and  who  argues  their  cause  with  all  the  sturdy  common-sense 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  mind. 


Prisciani  regula  penitus  cassatur, 

Sacerdos  per  hie  et  haec  olim  declinabatur ; 

Sed  per  hie  solummodo  nunc  artieulatur, 

Cum  per  nostrum  praesulem  lisec  amoveatur. 
****** 

Quid  agant  presbvteri  propriis  carentes  ? 

Alienas  violant  clanculo  molentes, 

Nullis  pro  conjugiis  foeminis  parcentes, 

Poenam  vel  infamiam  nihil  metuentes. 
***** 

Non  est  Innocentius,  immo  nocens  vere, 

Qui  quod  Deus  docuit  studet  abolere ; 

Jussit  enim  Dominus  feeminas  habere, 

Sed  hoc  noster  pontifex  jussit  prohibere. 

Gignere  nos  prsecipit  vetus  testamentum ; 

Ubi  novum  prohibet  nusquam  est  inventum. 

A  modernis  latum  est  istud  documentum, 

Ad  quod  nullum  ratio  prsebet  argumentum.2 

Nor  were  the  Anglican  bishops  remiss  in  seconding  the  efforts  of 
the  pope  to  break  down  the  opposition  wThich  thus  openly  defied  their 
power  and  ventured  even  to  justify  the  heresy  of  sacerdotal  marriage. 
Councils  were  held  wThich  passed  canons  more  stringent  than  ever ; 
bishops  issued  constitutions  and  pastorals  denouncing  the  custom ; 
inquests  were  organized  to  traverse  the  dioceses  and  investigate  the 
household  of  every  priest.  The  women  especially  were  attacked. 
Christian  sepulture  was  denied  them ;  property  left  to  them  and 
their  children  by  their  partners  in  guilt  was  confiscated  to  the 
bishops ;  churching  after  childbirth  was  interdicted  to  them  ;  and,  if 


1  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  vi.  103. 

2  Mapes’s  Poems,  pp.  171-2.  This 
well-known  poem  has  been  attributed 
to  the  Venerable  Hildebert,  Bishop  of 
Le  Mans,  as  written  on  the  occasion  of 


the  reformation  of  the  French  clergy 
by  Calixtus  II.  (Croke,  Rhyming  Latin 
Verse,  p.  85),  but  the  character  of  that 
reverend  prelate  forbids  such  an  as¬ 
sumption,  even  if  the  allusion  to  Inno- 
j  cent  did  not  assign  to  it  a  later  period. 


4 


288 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


still  contumacious  after  a  due  series  of  warnings,  they  were  to  be 
handed  over  to  the  secular  arm  for  condign  punishment.1  How  much 
all  this  bustling  legislation  effected  is  best  shown  by  the  declaration 
of  the  legate,  Cardinal  Otto,  in  1237,  at  the  great  council  of  London. 
He  deplores  the  fact  that  married  men  received  orders  and  held 
benefices  while  still  retaining  their  wives,  and  did  not  hesitate  to 
acknowdedge  their  children  as  legitimate  by  public  deeds  and  witnesses. 
After  descanting  upon  the  evils  of  this  neglect  of  discipline,  he  orders 
that  all  married  clerks  shall  be  deprived  of  preferment  and  benefice, 
that  their  property  shall  not  descend  to  wife  or  children,  but  to  their 
churches,  and  that  their  sons  shall  be  incapable  of  holy  orders  unless 
specially  dispensed  for  eminent  merit ;  then  turning  upon  concubinary 
priests,  he  inveighs  strongly  against  their  licentiousness,  and  decrees 
that  all  guilty  of  the  sin  shall  within  thirty  days  dismiss  their  women 
forever,  under  pain  of  suspension  from  function  and  benefice  until 
full  satisfaction,  persistent  contumacy  being  visited  with  deprivation. 
The  archbishops  and  bishops  are  commanded  to  make  thorough 
inquisition  throughout  all  the  deaneries,  to  bring  offenders  to  light, 
and  also  to  put  an  end  to  the  iniquitous  practice  of  ordaining  the 
offspring  of  such  connections  as  successors  in  their  father’s  benefices.2 

This  legislation  produced  much  excitement,  and  the  legate  even 
had  fears  for  his  life.  Some  prelates,  indeed,  maintained  that  it 
only  w'as  binding  on  the  church  of  England  during  the  residence  of 
Otto,  but  they  were  overruled,  and  it  remained  at  least  nominally  in 
force  and  was  frequently  referred  to  subsequently  as  the  recognized 
law  in  such  matters.  Its  effect  was  considerable,  and  some  of  the 
bishops  endeavored  to  carry  out  its  provisions  with  energy,  as  may  be 
presumed  from  a  constitution  of  William  of  Cantilupe,  Bishop  of 
Worcester,  issued  in  1240,  ordering  his  officials  to  investigate  dili¬ 
gently  whether  any  of  the  clergy  of  the  diocese  had  concubines  or 
were  married.3 

To  this  period  and  to  the  disturbance  caused  by  these  proceedings  are 
doubtless  to  be  attributed  several  satirical  pieces  of  verse  describing 
the  excitement  occurring  among  the  unfortunate  clerks  thus  attacked 


1  Concil.  Eboracens.  ann.  1195  c. 
17. — Concil.  Londiniens.  ann.  1200  c. 
10. — Concil.  Dunelinens.  ann.  1220. — 
Concil.  Oxoniens.  ann.  1222  c.  28. — 
Constit.  Archiep.  Cantuar.  ann.  1225 
(Matt.  Paris  ann.  1225).  —  Constit. 
Episc.  Lincoln,  ann.  1230  (Wilkins,  I. 


i  027). — Constit.  Provin.  Cantuar.  ann. 
1236  c.  3,  4,  30. — Constit.  Coventriens. 
ann.  1237  (Wilkins,  I.  041),  &c. 

2  Matt.  Paris  ann.  1237. 

3  Wilkins,  I.  672-3. 


I 


EXCITEMENT  AMONG  THE  CLERGY. 


289 


in  their  tenderest  spot.  The  opening  lines  of  one  of  these  poems 
indicate  the  novelty  and  unexpectedness  of  the  new  regulations  : — 

Rumor  novus  Angliae  partes  pergiravit, 

Clericos,  presbyteros  omnes  excitavit, 
****** 

Nascitur  presbyteris  hinc  fera  procella  : 

Quisquis  timet  graviter  pro  sua  puella. 

The  author  then  describes  a  great  council,  attended  by  more  than  ten 
thousand  ecclesiastics,  assembled  to  deliberate  on  the  course  to  be 
pursued  in  so  delicate  a  conjuncture.  An  old  priest  commences — 

Pro  nostris  uxoribus  sumus  congregati ; 

Videatis  provide  quod  sitis  parati, 

Ad  mandatum  domini  papas  vel  legati, 

Kespondere  graviter  ne  sitis  dampnati.1 

Another  poem  of  similar  character  describes  a  chapter  held  by  all 
orders  and  grades  to  consider  the  same  question.  The  various  speakers 
declare  their  inability  to  obey  the  new  rule,  except  two,  whose  age 
renders  them  indifferent.  A  learned  doctor  exclaims — 

Omnis  debet  clericus  habere  concubinam  ; 

Hoc  dixit  qui  coronam  gerit  auro  trinam: 

Hanc  igitur  retinere  decet  disciplinam. 

The  general  belief  in  the  legality  of  the  connection  is  shown  by  the 
remark  of  another — 

Surgens  unus  presbyter  turba  de  totali  .  .  . 

“Unam”  dixit  “teneo  amore  legali, 

Quam  nolo  dimittere  pro  lege  tali.” 

Another  expects  to  escape  by  paying  his  “cullagium” — 

Duodecimus  clamat  magno  cum  clamore  : 

“Non  me  pontifex  terret  minis  et  pavore  : 

Sed  ego  nummos  prsebeam  pro  Dei  amore, 

Ut  in  pace  maneam  cara  cum  uxore.” 

Another  urges  the  indiscriminate  immorality  attending  upon  the 
attempt  to  enforce  an  impossible  asceticism — 

Addidit  ulterius  :  “  Sitis  memor  horum, 

Si  vetare  prsesul  vult  specialem  torum, 

Cernet  totum  brevi  plenum  esse  chorum 
Ordine  sacrorum  adulterorum.” 


1  Dc  Convocatione  Sacerdotum  (Mapes’s  Poems,  pp.  180-2). 

19 


290 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


And  at  length  the  discussion  closes  with  the  speech  of  a  Dominican, 
who  ends  his  remarks  by  predicting — 

Habebimus  clerici  duas  concubinas  : 

Monachi,  canonici  totidem  vel  trinas  : 

Decani,  prselati,  quatuor  vel  quinas  : 

Sic  tandem  leges  implebimus  divinas.1 

Notwithstanding  these  flights  of  the  imagination,  no  organized 
resistance  was  offered  to  the  reform.  The  clergy  sullenly  acquiesced, 
and  submitted  to  a  pressure  which  was  becoming  irresistible.  The 
triumph  of  the  sacerdotal  party,  however,  was  gradual,  and  no  exact 
limit  can  be  assigned  to  the  recognition  of  the  principle  of  celibacy. 
In  1250  the  idea  of  married  priests  was  still  sufficiently  prevalent  to 
lead  the  populace  of  London  to  include  matrimony  among  the  accu¬ 
sations  brought  against  Boniface,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  when 
his  tyranny  had  aroused  general  resistance;2  and  in  1255  Walter 
Kirkham,  Bishop  of  Durham,  still  felt  it  necessary  to  prohibit  the 


1  Mapes’s  Poems,  pp.  17G-9. — All  the 
poetasters  of  the  period,  however,  were 
not  enlisted  on  one  side.  There  is  ex¬ 
tant  an  exhortation  against  marriage, 
addressed  to  the  clergy,  which  consists 
of  a  violent  invective  against  the  sex, 
recapitulating  the  customary  accusa¬ 
tions  against  women  with  all  the  brutal 
coarseness  of  the  age : — 

IIa?c  est  iniquitas  omnis  adulterm 

Qui  virum  proprium  vellet  non  vivcre, 

Ut  det  adultero  non  cessat  rapere — 

Desistat  igitur  clerus  nunc  nubere. 

Du  Meril,  op.  cit.  p.  184. 

The  “Confessio  Goliae”  feelingly  be¬ 
wails  the  difficulty  of  rendering  obe¬ 
dience  to  the  new  regulations  : — 

Res  est  arduissima  vincere  naturam, 

In  aspectu  virginum  mentem  ferre 
puram ; 

Juvenes  non  possunius  legem  sequi 
duram, 

Leviumque  corporum  non  habere  curam. 
Quis  in  igne  positus  igne  non  uratur? 

Quis  in  mundo  demorans  castus  habe- 
atur  ? 

Ubi  Venus  digito  juvenes  venatur 

Oculis  illaqucat,  facie  prmdatur? 

Mapes’s  Poems,  p.  72. 

2  Matt.  Paris  ann.  1250. 

This  Boniface  was  brother  of  the 
Duke  of  Savoy,  and  was  one  of  the 
Italian  prelates  whose  intrusion  into 
the  choice  places  of  the  Anglican 


church  was  a  source  of  intense  irrita¬ 
tion.  The  career  of  another  brother, 
Philip,  is  an  instructive  illustration 
of  the  ecclesiastical  manners  of  the 
age.  He  was  in  deacon’s  orders,  and 
yet,  as  a  leader  of  condottieri,  he  was 
a  strenuous  supporter  of  Innocent  IY. 
in  his  quarrel  with  Frederic  II.  He 
was  created  Archbishop  of  Lyons, 
Bishop  of  Yalence,  Provost  of  Bruges, 
and  Dean  of  Yienne,  and,  after  enjoy¬ 
ing  these  miscellaneous  dignities  for 
some  twenty  years,  when  at  length 
Clement  IY.  insisted  on  his  ordination 
and  consecration,  he  threw  off  his  epis¬ 
copal  robe,  married  first  the  heiress  of 
Franche-Comte  and  then  a  niece  of 
Innocent  IY. — dying  at  last  as  Duke 
of  Savov  (Milman,  Latin  Christ.  IY. 
326). 

The  indignation  felt  at  the  standing 
grievance  of  foreign  prelates  is  quaintly 
expressed  a  century  later  by  Lang- 
lande — 

And  a  peril  to  the  pope 
And  prelates  that  he  maketb, 

That  bere  bisshopes  names 
Of  Bethleem  and  Babiloigne, 

That  huppe  aboute  in  Engelond 
To  halwe  nicnnes  auteres, 

And  crepe  amonges  curatours, 

And  confessen  ageyn  the  lawe. 

Piers  Ploughman,  Wright’s  Edition, 
1.  10695-702. 


MARRIAGE  BECOMES  OBSOLETE. 


291 


marriage  of  his  clergy  under  pain  of  suspension  and  deprivation.1 
It  is  perhaps  noteworthy,  however,  that,  not  long  after  this,  Horne, 
in  his  Myrror  of  Justice,  when  treating  of  exceptions  to  the  benefit 
of  clergy,  specifies  second  marriages,  but  not  single  marriages,  as 
depriving  clerks  of  the  privilege  of  ecclesiastical  trial.2 

By  this  time,  however,  priestly  marriage  may  be  considered  to 
have  become  nearly  obsolete  in  England.  When,  in  1268,  the 
Cardinal-legate  Ottoboni  held  a  great  national  council  in  London, 
and  renewed  the  constitutions  of  his  predecessor  Otto,  he  made  no 
allusion  to  marriage,  and  only  denounced  the  practice  of  concu¬ 
binage,  which  he  endeavored  to  eradicate  by  commanding  all  arch¬ 
deacons  to  make  a  thorough  inquisition  annually  into  the  morals  of 
the  clergy  under  their  jurisdiction.3  These  constitutions  of  Otto 
and  Ottoboni  long  remained  the  law  of  the  English  church,  and  we 
find  them  constantly  referred  to  in  the  canons  of  councils  and  pas¬ 
torals  of  bishops,  ceaselessly  laboring  to  effect  the  impossible  enforce¬ 
ment  of  discipline ;  even  as  late  as  1399  the  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury  ordered  his  suffragans  to  have  them  read  and  explained  in  the 
vernacular  in  all  their  episcopal  synods.4  How  hard  was  the  task 
may  be  readily  conceived  when  we  see,  in  1279,  the  primate  Peckham, 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  applying  to  Rome  for  assistance  in  pros¬ 
ecuting  a  certain  bishop  against  whom  he  had  long  been  vainly  en¬ 
deavoring  to  bring  the  law  to  bear.  A  concubine  had  confessed  to 
having  borne  five  children  to  the  offender;5  he  had  himself  admitted 
his  guilt  in  a  private  interview  with  Peckham,  for  which  he  had 
afterwards  claimed  the  seal  of  the  confessional ;  yet  the  archbishop 
complains  that  his  efforts  will  be  unsuccessful  unless  he  is  fortified 


1  N ullusque  eorum  uxorem  ducat : 
et  si  antequam  sacros  ordines  suscepit 
uxorem  duxerit,  seu  postea,  si  bene- 
ficium  habeat,  ipso  privetur,  et  ab 
exsecutione  sui  officii  suspendatur,  nisi 
in  casu  a  jure  concesso.  —  Constit. 
Walteri  Episc.  Dunelmens.  (Wilkins, 
I.  705). 

2  Sir,  il  ne  doit  mie  joyer  du  benefit 
de  celle  priviledge,  car  il  ad  forfait  per 
vice  de  Bigamy ;  comme  celui  qui  ad 
espouse  vefve  ou  plusors  femmes. — 
Myrror  of  Justice,  cap.  in.  sect.  v. 

3  Concil.  Londiniens.  ann.  1268  c.  8 
(Wilkins,  II.  5). 


4  Convocat.  Cantuar.  ann.  1399  c. 
13  (Wilkins,  III.  240). 

5  The  canon  law  maintained  the 
extraordinarv  doctrine  that  the  con- 
fession  of  the  guilty  woman  could  not 
be  received  as  evidence  against  her 
accomplice,  though  it  was  good  as 
against  herself.  “  Unde  nec  sacerdotes 
accusare  nec  in  eos  testificari  valent. 

.  .  .  Quia  ergo  ista  de  se  confitetur, 
super  alienum  crimen  ei  credi  non 
oportet ;  sed  contra  earn  sua  confessio 
interpretanda  est”  (Gratian.  P.  ii. 
c.  xv.  q.  3).  It  would  be  hard  to 
imagine  a  rule  of  practice  better  fitted 
to  repress  investigation  and  to  shield 
offenders. 


292 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


with  letters  from  the  pope  himself.  His  strict  injunctions  of  secrecy 
on  his  correspondent,  and  his  evident  dread  lest  the  criminal’s  agents 
in  Rome  should  get  wind  of  the  application,  show  how  difficult  was 
the  enterprise,  and  how  rarely  prelates  could  be  expected  to  under¬ 
take  duties  so  arduous  and  so  unpromising.1 

Perhaps  the  man  to  whom  the  church  owed  most  for  his  energy 
and  activity  in  promoting  the  cause  of  reform  was  the  celebrated 
Robert  Grosseteste,  Bishop  of  Lincoln.  The  leading  part  which  he 
took  in  the  political  troubles  of  the  stormy  reign  of  Henry  III.  has 
thrown  his  ecclesiastical  character  somewhat  into  the  shade,  and  he 
is  better  known  as  the  friend  of  Leicester  than  as  the  untiring 
churchman.  Notwithstanding  his  consistent  opposition  to  Henry 
III.  and  to  the  encroachments  of  the  papacy,  he  was  the  inflexible 
enemy  of  clerical  irregularities,  and  he  enforced  the  decretals 
throughout  his  diocese  with  as  firm  a  hand  as  that  which  he  raised 
in  defence  of  the  rights  of  the  nation  and  the  privileges  of  the 
Anglican  church.  Thus,  in  1251,  he  made  a  rigorous  inquisition  in 
his  bishopric,  forcing  all  his  beneficed  clergy  to  the  observance  of 
the  strictest  chastity,  removing  from  their  houses  all  suspected  women, 
and  punishing  transgressors  with  deprivation.  It  is  not  easy  to 
approve  of  his  brutal  expedient  for  testing  the  virtue  of  the  inmates 
of  his  nunneries,2  the  adoption  of  which  could  only  be  justified  and 
suggested  by  the  conviction  that  general  licentiousness  was  every¬ 
where  prevalent ;  and  though  such  treatment  of  the  spouses  of  Christ 
was  to  the  last  degree  degrading,  yet  it  was  doubtless  more  efficacious 
than  the  ordeal  of  the  Eucharist,  which  was  frequently  resorted  to 
in  special  cases.  Not  only,  however,  did  he  thus  endeavor  to  reform 
the  morals  of  his  flock,  but  he  made  the  closest  scrutiny  into  the 
character  of  applicants  for  ordination.  In  this  he  was  largely  aided 
by  his  ascetic  friend  and  admirer,  Adam  de  Marisco,  and  the  corre¬ 
spondence  between  them  shows  not  only  the  importance  which  they 
reasonably  attached  to  the  subject,  but  the  sleepless  vigilance  required 
to  counteract  the  prevalent  immorality  of  the  clergy,  and  the  incred¬ 
ible  laxity  with  which  the  patrons  of  livings  bestowed  the  benefices 
in  their  gift.3 


1  Wilkins,  II.  40. 

2  Ad  domos  religiosarum  veniens, 
fecit  exprimi  mammillas  earundem,  ut 
sic  physice  si  esset  inter  eas  corruptela, 
experiretur — Matt.  Paris  ann.  1251. 

3  Ada}  de  Marisco  Epist.  passim 


(Monumenta  Franciscana).  How  little 
the  character  of  the  clergy  had  im¬ 
proved  under  the  ceaseless  efforts  of 
the  preceding  half  century  may  be 
guessed  from  Adam’s  description  of 
his  contemporary  brethren — “Nihil 
aliud  pervicacissima  caninas  voraci- 


SACERDOTAL  CELIBACY  ESTABLISHED. 


293 


The  rule  was  now  fairly  established  and  generally  acknowledged ; 
concubinage,  though  still  prevalent — nay,  in  fact  almost  universal — 
was  not  defended  as  a  right,  but  was  practised  with  what  conceal¬ 
ment  was  possible,  and  was  the  object  of  unremitting  assault  from 
councils  and  prelates.  To  enter  into  the  details  of  the  innumerable 
canons  and  constitutions  directed  against  the  ineradicable  vice  during 
the  succeeding  half  century  would  be  unprofitable.  Their  endless 
iteration  is  only  interesting  as  proving  their  inefficacy.  A  popular 
satirist  of  the  reign  of  Edward  II.  declares  that  bribery  of  the  eccle¬ 
siastical  officials  insured  the  domestic  comfort  of  the  clergy  and  their 
female  companions;1  while  in  time  the  canon  law  seems  to  have  lost 
all  its  terrors.  One  of  the  earliest  acts  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VII. 
was  a  law  empowering  the  ecclesiastical  officials  to  imprison  “  priests, 
clerks,  and  religious  men”  convicted  of  incontinence,  and  guaran¬ 
teeing  them  against  prosecution  by  the  offenders.2  That  the  aid  of 
the  secular  legislator  should  thus  have  been  invoked  for  protection 
under  such  circumstances  showed  the  audacity  resulting  from  long 
immunity,  and  is  the  abject  confession  that  the  ceaseless  labor  of 
four  centuries  had  utterly  failed. 


In  one  part  of  England,  however,  the  reform  seems  to  have  pene¬ 
trated  even  more  slowly.  We  have  seen  above,  on  the  testimony  of 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  that  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century 
the  marriage  of  priests  and  the  hereditary  transmission  of  benefices 
were  almost  universal  in  Wales.  As  in  the  wild  fastnesses  of  the 
Principality  the  ecclesiastical  regulations  seemed  powerless,  recourse 
was  had  to  the  secular  law,  which  was  employed  to  inflict  various 


tatis  impudentia  consectantur,  quam 
caducam  fastuum  arrogantiam,  quam 
mobilem  quaestuum  affluentiam,  quam 
sordidam  luxuum  petulentiam,  auc- 
toritatem  summse  salvationis  in  per- 
ditionis  aeternae  crudelitatem  depra- 
vantes  ;  ce.nimus  usquequaquam  quasi 
solutum  Satanam  effraenata  tyrannide 
beatam  haereditatem  benedicti  Dei  im- 
manissime  depopulari.” — Ibid.  Epist. 
ccxlvii.  P.  i.  c.  18. 

1  And  thise  ersedeknes  that  ben  set  to 
visite  holi  churche, 

Everich  fondeth  hu  he  may  shrewede- 
liehest  worche ; 

He  wole  take  mede  of  that  on  and  that 
other, 


And  late  the  parsoun  have  a  wyf  and 
the  prest  another, 

At  wille ; 

Coveytise  shal  stoppen  here  mouth,  and 
maken  hem  al  stille. 

Wright,  Political  Songs  of  England, 
p  326. 

So  Robert  Langlande  states 

“  In  the  consistorie  bifore  the  commissarie 
He  cometh  noght  but  ofte; 

For  hir  lawe  dureth  over  longe. 

But  if  thei  lacchen  silver, 

And  matrimoyne  for  moneie 
Maken  and  unmaken.” 

Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman,  v.  10102 
-7  (Wright’s  Edition). 

2  1  Henry  VII.  cap.  4. 


294 


NORMAN  ENGLAND. 


disabilities  on  offenders  and  their  offspring,  and  the  repetition  of 
these  shows  how  obstinately  the  custom  was  adhered  to  by  the  clergy 
until  a  comparatively  late  period.  Thus,  in  the  Gwentian  and  Di- 
metian  Codes  there  is  a  provision  that  the  son  of  a  married  priest, 
born  after  the  ordination  of  his  father,  shall  not  share  in  the  paternal 
estate ; 1  and  this  provision  is  retained  and  repeated  in  a  collection  of 
laws  which  contains  the  date  of  2  Henry  IV.,  showing  it  to  be  pos¬ 
terior  to  the  year  1400.2  The  same  collection  enumerates  married 
priests  among  “thirteen  things  corrupting  the  world,  and  which  will 
ever  remain  in  it;  and  it  can  never  be  delivered  of  them.”3  In  the 
same  spirit,  the  Book  of  Cynog,  which  is  of  uncertain  date,  declares 
“nor  is  a  married  priest,  as  he  has  relinquished  his  law,  to  be  cred¬ 
ited  in  law,”  and  it  therefore  directs  that  the  testimony  of  such  wit¬ 
nesses  shall  not  be  receivable  in  court ; 4  while  another  collection  of 
laws,  occurring  in  a  MS.  of  the  fifteenth  century,  repeats  the  pro¬ 
vision — “their  testimony  is  not  to  be  credited  in  any  place,  and  they 
are  excluded  from  the  law,  unless  they  ask  a  pardon  from  the  pope 
or  a  bishop,  through  a  public  penance.  ” 5  In  fact,  we  may,  perhaps, 
almost  hazard  the  conclusion  that,  notwithstanding  the  efforts  of  both 
ecclesiastical  and  secular  legislators,  sacerdotal  marriage  scarcely 
became  obsolete  in  Wales  before  it  was  once  more  recognized  as 
legitimate  under  the  Reformation. 


1  Gwentian  Code,  Book  n.  chap.  xxx. 
“  Because  he  was  begotten  contrary  to 
decree.” — Dimetian  Code,  Book  n. 
chap.  viii.  $  27  (Aneurin  Owen’s 
Ancient  Laws  and  Institutes  of  Wales, 
Vol.  I.  pp.  761,  445).  Of  the  latter  of 
these  codes,  the  recension  which  has 
reached  us  contains  alterations  made 
by  Rys  son  of  Grufudd,  showing  it  to 
be  posterior  at  least  to  the  year  1180. 


2  Anomalous  Laws,  Book  x.  chap, 
vii.  g  19  (Owen,  Yol.  II.  p.  331). 

3  Ibid.  chap.  ix.  (Yol.  II.  p.  347). 

4  Ibid.  Book  viii.  chap.  xi.  g  19 
(Yol.  II.  p.  205). 

5  Ibid.  Book  xi.  chap.  iii.  $  15 
(Yol.  II.  p.  409). 


XVIII. 


IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 


In  a  previous  section  it  has  already  been  shown  that  the  rule  of 
celibacy  was  observed  by  the  Celtic  churches  of  the  British  Islands 
during  a  period  in  which  their  Christianity  was  a  model  for  the  rest 
of  Europe.  Their  religion,  however,  could  not  preserve  its  purity 
and  simplicity  amid  the  overwhelming  barbarism  of  those  dreary 
ages.  From  an  ancient  commentary  on  the  “Cain  Patraic,”  or 
Patrick’s  Law,  of  uncertain  date,  but  probably  belonging  to  the  ninth 
or  tenth  century,  it  would  seem  as  though  there  were  at  that  time 
two  classes  of  bishops,  one  bound  by  monastic  vows,  the  other  per¬ 
mitted  to  marry ;  and,  what  is  somewhat  singular,  the  law  appears  to 
favor  the  latter,  for  the  “  cumad  espuc,”  or  virgin  bishop,  is  con¬ 
demned  to  perpetual  degradation  or  to  the  life  of  a  hermit  for  offences 
which  the  “  bishop  of  one  wife  ”  can  redeem  by  prompt  penance.1 

The  Feini,  prior  to  the  advent  of  St.  Patrick,  were  far  in  advance 
of  the  contemporary  barbarian  tribes,  and  their  conversion  to  Chris¬ 
tianity  introduced  a  new  and  powerful  element  of  progress.  It  was 
not  lasting,  however,  and  they  lapsed  into  a  condition  but  little 
removed  from  that  of  savages.  The  marriage-tie  was  virtually  un¬ 
known  or  habitually  disregarded  among  the  laity.2  What  was  the 


1  Senchus  Mor.  Introduction,  pp. 
57-9.  (Edited  by  Hancock,  Dublin, 
1865.) 

2  Lanfranci  Epistt.  37,  38. — Bernardi 
Yit.  S.  Malachise  cap.  iii.  viii. — The 
rudeness  of  the  age  may  be  measured 
by  the  fact  that  when  Malachi  deter¬ 
mined  to  adorn  the  venerable  monas¬ 
tery  of  Benchor  with  an  oratory  of 
stone  such  as  he  had  seen  abroad,  the 
mere  laying  of  the  foundations  aroused 
the  wonderment  of  the  people,  to  whom 
buildings  of  that  kind  were  unknown — 


“quod  in  terra  ilia  necdum  ejusmodi 
sedificia  invenirentur  ” — and  his  ene¬ 
mies  took  advantage  of  the  feeling  to 
interfere  with  the  work  on  the  ground 
that  such  an  enterprise  was  unheard  of, 
and  that  so  stupendous  an  undertaking 
could  never  be  accomplished.  This 
piece  of  presumption  was  promptly  re¬ 
buked  by  the  death  of  the  ringleader, 
and  by  the  finding  in  the  excavations 
of  a  treasure  which  enabled  St.  Malachi 
to  execute  his  plans  (Yit.  S.  Malach. 
c.  xxviii.).  St.  Bernard,  who  derived 


296 


IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 


condition  of  the  clergy  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the  episco¬ 
pates  were  regarded  as  the  private  property  of  certain  families  in 
which  they  descended  by  hereditary  succession.  Thus,  in  the  pri- 
matial  see  of  Armagh,  fifteen  archbishops  were  of  one  house,  the  last 
eight  of  whom  were  married.  At  length  Celsus,  who  died  about  the 
year  1130,  bequeathed  the  dignity  to  his  friend  St.  Malachi.  The 
kindred  rose  in  arms  at  this  infringement  of  their  rights,  and  two  of 
their  members  successively  occupied  the  position,  which  Malachi  was 
not  able  to  obtain  until  the  anger  of  God  had  miraculously  destroyed 
the  whole  family.1 

During  all  this  period  the  Irish  church  had  been  completely  inde¬ 
pendent  of  the  central  authority  at  Rome,  but  the  extension  of 
influence  resulting  from  the  labors  of  Hildebrand  and  his  successors 
soon  began  to  make  itself  felt.  In  the  quarrels  concerning  the  suc¬ 
cession  of  Archbishop  Celsus,  there  figures  a  certain  Bishop  Gilbert, 
who  is  described  as  being  the  first  papal  legate  seen  in  Ireland.2 
When  Malachi  abandoned  Armagh  and  revived  the  extinct  episcopate 
of  Down,  he  resolved  on  a  pilgrimage  to  Rome  to  obtain  the  pallium, 
a  powerful  instrument  of  papal  authority,  until  then  unknown  on  the 
island ;  and  perhaps  the  opposition  manifested  to  his  wishes  by  his 
friends  as  well  as  by  the  authorities  may  be  attributable  to  a  repug¬ 
nance  towards  the  gradual  encroachments  of  Romanizing  influence.3 

Malachi  returned  from  Rome  armed  with  legatine  powers,  and 
proceeded  vigorously  with  the  reforms  which  he  had  long  before 
commenced.  He  held  numerous  councils,  extirpating  abuses  every¬ 
where,  renovating  the  ancient  rules  of  discipline  and  introducing  new 
ones,  bending  all  his  energies  to  abrogating  the  national  institutions 
and  replacing  them  with  those  of  Rome.4  The  earnest  asceticism  of 
his  nature,  exaggerated  by  the  training  of  his  youth,  led  him  to  give 
a  strongly  monastic  character  to  the  church  of  which  he  was  thus  the 
second  founder.  On  his  journey  homeward  from  Rome,  he  had 
tarried  a  second  time  at  Clairvaux  to  see  his  friend  St.  Bernard,  and 


his  impressions  from  Malachi  and  his 
companions,  thus  describes  the  Irish  of 
Connaught,  “  sic  protervos  ad  mores, 
sic  ferales  ad  ritus,  sic  ad  fidem  impios, 
ad  leges  barbaros,  cervicosos  ad  disci¬ 
plinary  spurcos  ad  vitam.  Christiani 
nomine,  re  pagani.  Non  decimas,  non 
prirnitias  dare,  non  legitima  inire  con- 
jugia,  non  facere  confessiones;  pceni- 
tentias  nec  qui  peteret,  nec  qui  daret 


penitus  invenire.  Ministri  altaris  pauci 
admodum  erant.” — Ibid.  cap.  viii. 

1  Ibid.  c.  x.  xi.  xii.  xiii. 

2  Ibid.  c.  x. 

3  Ibid.  c.  xv. 

4  Ibid.  c.  xviii.  —  Fiunt  de  medio 
barbaric®  leges,  Roman®  introducun- 
tur. — Ibid.  c.  viii. 


REFORMS  OF  MALACHI. 


297 


had  left  there  four  of  his  attendants  to  be  exercised  in  the  severe 
Cistercian  discipline  that  they  might  serve  as  missionaries  and  as 
models  for  his  compatriots,  who  had  heard,  indeed,  of  monkhood,  but 
had  never  seen  it.1  His  efforts,  in  this  respect,  were  to  a  consider¬ 
able  extent  successful,  at  least  in  a  portion  of  the  island,  though  his 
death  in  1149,  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  54,  cut  short  his 
labors  before  they  could  yield  their  full  fruit.2 

The  incongruous  character  thus  imparted  to  the  Irish  church  is 
described  by  Giraldus  Cambrensis  some  forty  years  later.  The  pre¬ 
lates  were  selected  from  the  monasteries,  and  the  church  was  com¬ 
pletely  monastic.  Chastity  was  the  only  rule  of  discipline  thoroughly 
preserved,  and  Giraldus  confesses  his  wonder  that  it  could  be  main¬ 
tained,  in  contradiction  to  all  former  experience,  when  gluttony  and 
drunkenness  were  carried  to  excess.  The  monastic  principle  of 
selfishness  was  all-pervading,  and  the  pastors  took  no  care  of  their 
flocks.  Among  the  people,  marriage  was  still  unknoAvn,  incest  was 
of  common  occurrence,  even  the  rudiments  of  Christian  faith  were  left 
untaught,  and  the  church  was  regarded  without  reverence.3  His 
account  of  the  absence  of  regular  stipends  and  tithes  is  confirmed  by 
the  fact  that  an  Irish  bishop  attending  the  council  of  Lateran  in 
1179,  in  complaining  of  the  condition  of  his  native  church,  stated 
that  his  only  revenues  were  derived  from  three  milch  cows,  which 
his  flock  were  bound  to  replace  as  they  became  dry.4  This  poverty, 
however  apostolic  in  itself,  can  only,  in  an  age  of  magnificent  sacer¬ 
dotalism,  be  regarded  as  an  indication  of  a  church  whose  degradation 
could  command  neither  the  respect  nor  the  support  of  its  children. 
That  the  reforms  of  Malachi,  one-sided  as  they  were,  extended  only 
over  a  portion  of  the  island,  is  evident  from  the  inquiry  which,  a  few 
years  later,  the  Archbishop  of  Cashel  addressed  to  Clement  III.  as 


1  Ibid.  c.  xvi. — Illa3  gentes  quse  a 
diebus  antiquis  monachi  quidem  no- 
men  audierunt,  monachum  non  vide- 
runt. 

2  In  the  hymn  in  which  St.  Bernard 
celebrated  the  virtues  of  his  friend  he 
compares  him  to  the  Apostles — 

Sobrius  victus,  castitas  perennis, 
Fides,  doctrina,  aniinarum  lucra, 
Mentis  parent  coetui  permiscet 
Apostolorum. 

3  Sermo  Giraldi  in  Concil.  Dublinens. 
(De  Rebus  a  se  Gestis  Lib.  n.  c.  14). 


In  the  “  Topographia  Hibernica,” 
Dist.  hi.  cap.  27,  Giraldus  confirms  his 
assertion  as  to  the  chastity  and  drunk¬ 
enness  of  the  Irish  clergy,  but  admits 
that  they  observed  the  canonical  fasts 
with  praiseworthy  strictness. 

4  Hist.  Archiep.  Bremens  ann.  1179 
(Lindenbrog.  Script.  Septent.  p.  107). 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind,  however, 
that  in  the  Irish  church  bishops  were 
almost  as  numerous  as  in  the  primitive 
church  of  Africa — “  singuhe  pene  ec- 
clesias  singulos  haberent  episcopos.” — 
Bernard.  Vit.  S.  Malachise  cap.  x. 


298 


IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 


to  whether  the  children  of  bishops  could  receive  orders  and  hold 
benefices ;  and  the  exceptional  character  of  the  Irish  establishment 
was  recognized  by  the  pope  when  he  decided  that  they  could,  provided 
they  were  born  in  'wedlock,  and  were  otherwise  worthy  of  position.1 
This  requisite  of  legitimacy  w'as  apparently  not  imposed  in  ignorance, 
for  at  the  council  of  Cashel  in  1171  wTe  find  an  effort  made  to  enforce 
Christian  marriage  among  the  people,  who  are  still  described  as  in¬ 
dulging  in  unrestricted  polygamy  and  disregarding  the  nearest  ties 
of  consanguinity.2 

When  about  this  period  the  English  commenced  the  conquest 
wdiich  was  to  lead  to  five  centuries  of  cruel  anarchy,  they  of  course 
carried  with  them  their  civil  and  ecclesiastical  institutions.  The 
original  conquerors — the  Butlers,  the  Clares,  and  the  Fitzgeralds — 
speedily  became  incorporated  wTith  the  native  race,  and  were  as  Irish 
as  the  O’Briens  and  the  McCauras.  Although  the  royal  authority 
wTas  limited  practically  to  the  confines  of  the  Pale,  and  embraced 
little  beyond  the  Ostman  ports,  yet  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the 
clerical  license  habitual  to  the  English  spread  beyond  the  political 
boundaries,  and  the  monastic  spirit  of  the  Hibernians  was  grievously 
wounded  by  the  unchastity  which  was  disseminated  like  a  contagion 
from  the  dissolute  priests  who  followed  in  the  wrake  of  Strong-bow 
and  Prince  John.3  Not  twenty  years  after  the  first  invasion,  a 
council,  summoned  in  1186  by  John  in  Dublin,  was  troubled  by  a 
quarrel  between  the  Saxon  priests  of  Wexford,  who  mutually  accused 
each  other  of  publicly  marrying  and  keeping  "wives.  This  being  duly 
proved,  they  were  promptly  degraded,  to  the  intense  satisfaction  of 
the  Irish  clergy,  triumphant  in  their  own  comparative  purity  of 
morals.4  When,  therefore,  in  1205,  Innocent  III.  specially  ordered 
his  legate,  Cardinal  Julian,  to  put  an  end  to  the  hereditary  trans¬ 
mission  of  benefices  common  in  Ireland,  the  abuse  to  which  he 
referred  was  probably  confined  to  the  English  Pale.5  The  church 
establishments,  in  fact,  "were  distinct,  and  consequently  when  an  Irish 
synod  was  held  in  Dublin,  in  1217,  its  canons  cannot  be  considered 
as  having  authority  beyond  the  narrow  territory  through  which  the 
king’s  writ  would  likewise  run.  Those  canons  sho"w  us  that  the 

1  Cap.  13  Extra  Lib.  I.  Tit.  xvii. 

2  Benedicti  Abbatis  Gesta  Henrici  II.  ann.  1171. 

3  Girald.  Cambrens.  op.  cit.  Lib.  II.  c.  13. 

4  Girald.  Cambrens.  loc.  cit.  5  Innocent  PP.  III.  Regest.  v.  158. 


THE  ANGLO-IRISH  CHURCH  —  THE  CULDEES.  299 


morality  of  the  Saxon  priesthood  had  not  improved  by  the  example 
made  of  the  priests  of  Wexford.  The  denunciations  of  concubinage 
indicate  the  prevalence  of  that  vice,  and  the  severities  threatened 
against  the  unfortunate  women  contrast  strangely  with  the  lenity 
shown  to  their  more  guilty  partners.1  A  century  later,  if  we  may 
believe  the  declaration  of  the  synod  of  Ossory  in  1320,  the  evil  con¬ 
tinued  to  flourish,  open,  avowed,  and  universal,  resisting  alike  the 
authority  of  the  church  and  the  efforts  to  repress  it  by  severity.2 
Whether  the  offenders  dismissed  their  consorts  after  the  thirty  days’ 
grace  allowed  by  the  synod  may  well  be  doubted.  With  the  spread 
of  English  domination,  the  purity  of  the  native  church  disappeared, 
and  so  great  became  the  general  disregard  of  the  canons  that  shortly 
before  the  Reformation  it  was  not  an  unusual  thing  for  Irish  priests 
to  he  openly  married,  nor  do  those  who  did  so  seem  to  have  thereby 
forfeited  the  esteem  of  their  neighbors.3 


In  Scotland,  the  Christianity  introduced  by  St.  Columba  had 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  Culdees.  These  were  originally  monks 
of  a  more  than  ordinary  strictness  of  discipline,  to  whom  the  earliest 
recorded  allusion  occurs  in  Ireland  towards  the  close  of  the  eighth 
century — the  name,  Cele-de  (Keledeus,  or  Servus  Dei)  meaning 
simply  Servant  of  God.  In  the  course  of  time  the  Culdees  had  so 
relaxed  their  rule  that  they  reappear  in  the  eleventh  century  as  an 
order  nominally  of  monks,  yet  fulfilling  the  functions  of  the  secular 
clergy,  and  enjoying  free  permission  to  marry,  only  abstaining  from 
their  wives  when  employed  in  the  actual  ministry  of  the  altar.  With 
marriage  had  come  the  hereditary  transmission  of  the  endowments  of 
the  church  to  their  children,  so  that  the  ancient  abbeys  and  churches 
were  well-nigh  stripped  of  all  their  possessions,  and  the  distinction 
between  clergy  and  laity  was  rather  in  term  than  in  fact.  It  may 
please  the  poet  to  construct  a  world  of  his  own,  peopled  by  imaginary 
beings  of  angelic  purity — 


1  Concil.  Dublinens.  ann.  1217 
(Wilkins,  I.  548). 

2  Quia  putridum  libidinosae  spur- 
citiae  contagium  adeo  apud  clericos  et 
presbyteros  invaluit  his  diebus,  quod 
nec  auctoritas  evangelica,  nec  canon- 
ica  severitas  illud  hactenus  extirpare 
potuit,  quia  in  suae  perpetuae  damna- 


tionis  periculum,  et  ordinis  ecclesias- 
ticae  ignominiam,  populique  pernicio- 
sum  exemplum  manifestum,  adhuc 
suas  publice  detinent  concubinas,  etc. — 
Constit.  Synod.  Ossoriens.  (Wilkins, 
II.  502). 

3  Bradshaw’s  Enniskillen  (London 
Athenaeum,  Sept.  7th,  1878,  p.  305). 


300 


IRELAND  AND  SCOTLAND. 


Peace  to  their  shades  !  The  pure  Culdees 
Were  Albyn’s  earliest  priests  of  God, 

Ere  yet  an  island  of  her  seas 

By  foot  of  Saxon  monk  was  trod, 

Long  ere  her  churchmen  by  bigotry 
Were  barred  from  wedlock’s  holy  tie. 

’Twas  then  that  Aodh,  famed  afar, 

In  Iona  preached  the  word  with  power, 

And  Reullura,  beauty’s  star, 

Was  the  partner  of  his  bower — 

but  in  sober  truth  the  Culdees  were  pure  as  long  as  they  kept  the 
tradition  of  their  founder,  and  it  was  not  until  they  sank  to  a  level 
with  their  savage  compatriots  that  they  transgressed  the  rule  and 
became  worldly  and  corrupt.1  In  1125  the  Cardinal-legate,  John  of 
Crema,  whose  unlucky  adventure  in  London  has  been  already  alluded 
to,  visited  Scotland  in  the  execution  of  his  reformatory  mission. 
There  he  found  on  the  throne  David  I.,  a  prince  whose  life  wTas 
devoted  to  rescuing  his  subjects  from  their  primaeval  barbarism.  We 
know  few  details  of  the  history  of  those  times,  but  it  is  fair  to  con¬ 
jecture  that  the  exhortations  of  the  legate  had  a  share  in  arousing 
David  to  a  realization  of  the  deficiencies  and  the  corruptions  of  the 
Scottish  church,  and  in  guiding  him  to  the  course  which  he  adopted 
in  its  reformation.  After  some  fruitless  efforts  to  restore  the  order 
of  Culdees  to  its  original  condition,  he  resolved  on  the  sweeping 
measure  of  removing  all  who  should  prove  incorrigible.  They  were 
accordingly  turned  out  bodily  from  their  establishments,  such  prop¬ 
erty  as  could  be  traced  was  restored,  and  donations  on  an  extended 
scale  were  made  both  to  the  old  foundations  and  to  the  new  ones 
which  the  royal  reformer  established — donations  which  gained  for 
him,  from  an  ungodly  descendant,  the  appellation  of  “  Ane  soir  sanct 
for  the  crown.”  These  foundations  were  then  filled  with  regular 
clergy,  brought  from  France  and  England — chiefly  canons  of  the 
order  of  St.  Augustin — and  the  unfortunate  Culdees  were  turned 
adrift  unless  they  would  promise  to  observe  the  strictness  of  monastic 
rule.  It  is  probable  that  in  a  few  places  they  did  so,  for  references 
to  Culdees  still  occur  occasionally  even  in  the  next  century,  but  these 
measures  were  effective  and  practically  they  and  their  customs  dis¬ 
appeared  together.2 


1  Ilnddan  and  Stubbs,  II.  175-80. 

2  Haddan  and  Stubbs,  II,  216,  224-7, 
235. — See  also  Cosmo  Innes’  “  Scotland 


in  the  Middle  Ages,”  pp.  107  sqq.  We 
may  assume  that  John  of  Crema  or  the 
pope  must  have  conferred  extraordinary 


THE  SCOTTISH  CHURCH  REFORMED. 


301 


In  a  church  thus  constructed  from  the  regular  clergy,  the  heresy 
of  marriage  could  find  no  foothold,  especially  as  it  had  been  so  sternly 
punished  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Culdees.  Still  was  the  desired 
purity  not  yet  attained.  In  1181,  during  the  long  quarrel  between 
William  the  Lion  and  the  papacy  on  the  subject  of  the  archbishopric 
of  St.  Andrews,  an  interdict  was  pronounced  on  all  ecclesiastics  who 
should  refuse  to  recognize  the  papal  candidate  John,  whereupon  the 
King  persecuted  those  who  obeyed  the  mandate,  and  the  chronicler, 
in  expatiating  upon  his  cruelty,  is  careful  to  mention  that  he  did 
not  spare  their  children,  even  to  babes  in  their  mothers’  arms,  who 
were  remorselessly  driven  into  exile.1  The  state  of  things  indicated 
by  this  remained  without  improvement.  In  1225,  Honorius  III. 
ordered  the  Scottish  ecclesiastics  to  assemble  in  council  for  the  cor¬ 
rection  of  the  many  enormities  which  were  committed  with  impunity  ; 
and  the  council  held  in  obedience  to  the  papal  command  denounced 
the  shameless  licentiousness  of  the  clergy  as  a  disgrace  to  the  church.2 
Inquests  to  detect  the  offenders,  suspension  and  deprivation  to  punish 
them,  were  ordered  with  all  the  verbal  energy  of  which  we  have 
already  witnessed  so  many  examples,  and  were  attended  with  the 
same  plentiful  lack  of  success.  With  what  disposition  the  clergy 
regarded  these  efforts  for  their  improvement  we  may  guess  from  the 
reception  which  they  gave  to  the  constitutions  of  Cardinal  Ottoboni. 
Reference  has  already  been  made  to  the  council  held  by  that  legate 
in  London  in  1268.  The  church  of  Scotland  had  been  ordered  to 
join  in  this  council,  and  had  sent  two  bishops  and  two  abbots  as  its 
representative  delegates.  These  took  home  with  them  the  constitu¬ 
tions  of  Ottoboni,  which  the  clergy  of  Scotland  utterly  refused  to 
obey.3 


powers  on  David  before  he  could  have 
the  presumption  to  thus  arbitrarily 
regulate  and  revolutionize  the  church. 
This,  indeed,  may  readily  he  conceived 
as  probable  when  wo  reflect  how  little 
authority  Rome  could  have  exercised 
over  the  Culdees,  and  how  readily 
Scotland  must  have  been  subjected  to 
the  central  power  by  placing  her  eccle¬ 
siastical  establishment  in  the  hands  of 
the  Sassenach  monks. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  12th  century, 


Giraldus  Cambrensis  calls  the  Culdees 
of  Bardsey  in  "Wales,  “  Ccelibes  vel 
Colidei  ”  and  characterizes  them  as 
“  religiosissimi  ”  (Itin.  Cambr.  n.  6 — 
ap.  Haddan  and  Stubbs,  II.  xxiii.). 

1  Gesta  Henrici  II.  T.  I.  p.  282  (M. 
R.  Series). 

2  Concil.  Scotican.  ann.  1225  c.  18, 
62  (Wilkins,  I.  610). 

3  Chron.  Paslatens.  ann.  1268  (Wil¬ 
kins,  II.  19). 


XIX. 


SPAIN. 


We  have  already  seen  (p.  121)  that  among  the  Wisigoths  of  Spain 
the  rule  of  celibacy  had  never  been  successfully  enforced,  and  that 
during  the  later  period  of  the  Gothic  dynasty  the  demoralization  of 
the  clergy  was  daily  increasing.  The  Saracenic  invasion,  and  the 
subsequent  struggles  of  the  Christians,  who  founded  petty  kingdoms 
among  the  wild  mountainous  regions  of  the  North  and  East  of  the 
Peninsula,  were  not  favorable  to  the  growth  of  regular  discipline  and 
settled  observances.  The  centralized  sacerdotalism  of  Rome,  which 
took  so  remarkable  an  extension  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries, 
and  which  penetrated  every  portion  of  the  Carlovingian  empire,  was 
powerless  to  intrude  into  the  strongholds  of  the  Jalikiah,  whence  the 
descendants  of  Pelayo  and  his  companions  gradually  extended  their 
frontiers  from  Oviedo  to  Toledo.  Communication  with  the  apostolic 
city  was  rare.  The  nominal  subjection  of  Barcelona  and  Navarre  to 
the  Carlovingians,  indeed,  brought  the  eastern  provinces  of  Spain 
under  the  domination  of  the  Archbishops  of  Narbonne,  and  kept 
them,  to  a  certain  extent,  under  the  influences  which  were  moulding 
the  rest  of  Europe ;  but  the  kingdoms  of  Leon  and  Castile  grew  up 
in  complete  ecclesiastical  independence.  Even  at  the  close  of  the 
eleventh  century  a  Spanish  ecclesiastic  describes  his  contemporary 
brethren  as  rude  and  illiterate,  owning  no  obedience  to  the  mother 
church  of  Rome,  and  governed  by  the  discipline  of  Toledo.1  Wild 
and  insubordinate  as  was  a  large  portion  of  the  European  clergy,  the 
ecclesiastics  of  Spain  were  even  wilder  and  more  insubordinate. 
Another  writer  of  the  period,  himself  a  canon  of  Compostella,  and 
subsequently  Bishop  of  Mondonego,  speaking  of  his  brother  canons 
previous  to  the  reforms  of  Diego  Gelmirez,  denounces  them  as  reck- 


1  Hist.  Compostellan.  Lib.  II.  c.  1. 


MARRIAGE  UNIVERSAL. 


303 


less  and  violent  men,  ready  for  any  crime,  prompt  in  quarrel,  and 
even  occasionally  indulging  in  mutual  slaughter.1  How  little,  indeed, 
there  was  to  distinguish  the  clerk  from  the  layman  is  evident  from 
a  regulation  promulgated  by  the  council  of  Compostella  in  1113.  It 
provides  that  all  priests,  gentlemen,  and  peasants  shall  devote  them¬ 
selves  to  wolf-hunting  on  every  Sunday,  except  Easter  and  Pentecost, 
under  a  penalty  of  a  fine  of  five  sols  for  the  priest  and  gentleman, 
and  one  sol,  or  a  sheep,  for  the  peasant — visitation  of  the  sick  being 
the  only  excuse  exempting  the  priest  from  the  performance  of  this 
duty.  Every  church,  moreover,  was  bound  to  furnish  for  the  hunt 
seven  iron-tipped  reeds.2  A  similar  condition  of  society  is  indicated 
at  the  other  end  of  Spain,  where,  in  1027,  the  Synod  of  Elna,  in 
Roussillon,  had  forbidden,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  any  one  to 
attack  a  monk  or  a  clerk  who  was  without  arms.3 

In  such  lack  of  social  organization  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the 
rule  of  celibacy  received  little  attention.  According  to  Mariana,  the 
clergy  of  the  period  were,  for  the  most  part,  publicly  married;4  and 
when,  in  1056,  the  council  of  Compostella  specifically  forbade  to 
bishops  and  monks  all  intercourse  with  women,  except  with  mothers, 
aunts,  and  sisters  wearing  the  monastic  habit,5  the  inference  is  fair 
that  even  so  elementary  a  prohibition  was  an  innovation,  and  that 
the  secular  clergy,  below  the  episcopate,  were  not  regarded  as  subject 
to  any  restriction. 

In  the  comprehensive  efforts,  however,  made  during  the  later  half 
of  the  eleventh  century  by  the  Roman  church  to  bring  all  Chris¬ 
tendom  under  its  domination,  the  rising  states  of  Spain  were  not 
likely  to  remain  undisturbed  in  their  independent  isolation  ;  nor  was 
it  to  be  expected  that  so  complete  a  defiance  of  the  canons  would  be 
passed  unobserved  by  the  pontiffs  who  were  convulsing  the  rest  of 
Europe  in  their  efforts  to  reform  the  church.  Accordingly,  in  1068, 
we  find  the  Cardinal  Hugo  of  Silva  Candida,  as  legate  of  Alexander 
II.,  assembling  a  council  at  Girona,  and  procuring  the  adoption  of  a 


1  Hist.  Compostellan.  Lib.  i.  c.  20. 

2  Didaci  Decret.  No.  15  (Hist.  Com¬ 
postellan.  Lib.  i.  cap.  90). 

3  Synod.  Helenens.  ann.  1027  c.  3 
(Aguirre,  IV.  393). 

4  Hist,  de  Espaha,  Lib.  ix.  cap.  xi. 

5  Concil.  Compostellan.  ann.  1056 
can.  3.  An  allusion,  however,  to  those 


who  left  the  church  and  married  being 
allowed  to  return  on  abandoning  their 
wives,  would  seem  to  show  that  some 
supervision  was  exercised.  The  council 
of  Coyanza,  in  1050,  had  forbidden  the 
residence  of  strange  women,  except 
mother,  aunt,  or  step-mother,  but  says 
nothing  as  to  marriage. — Con.  Coyacens. 
ann.  1050  c.  iii.  (Aguirre  IV.  405, 
407). 


304 


SPAIN. 


regulation  reducing  to  the  condition  of  laymanship  all  who,  in  holy 
orders,  either  entered  into  matrimony  or  kept  concubines;  while 
those  who  should  dismiss  their  wives  were  promised  immunity  for  the 
past  and  security  for  the  future.1  In  1077,  Gregory  VII.  sent  a 
certain  Bishop  Amandus  as  his  legate,  with  an  epistle  addressed  to 
the  Spaniards,  in  which  he  told  them  that  Spain  had  anciently 
belonged  to  St.  Peter  and  the  Homan  church ;  that  the  carelessness 
of  his  predecessors,  and  the  Saracenic  conquest,  had  caused  the  papal 
rights  to  be  forgotten,  but  that  the  time  had  come  for  them  to  be 
revendicated,  and  that  he  consequently  claimed  implicit  obedience.2 
Accordingly,  in  1078,  we  find  the  legate  presiding  over  another 
council  at  Girona,  which  confirmed  the  canons  of  the  previous  one, 
and  added  several  others  to  prevent  the  ordination  of  sons  of  priests, 
and  the  hereditary  transmission  of  benefices.3  Such  slender  reforms 
as  may  have  resulted  from  these  efforts  were  probably  confined  to 
Catalonia  and  Aragon ;  but  not  long  afterwards  influences  w'ere 
brought  to  bear  upon  the  rest  of  Spain,  which  had  a  powerful  effect 
in  extending  the  authority  of  Rome  over  the  Peninsula.  Constance 
of  Burgundy,  Queen  of  Alfonso  VI.  of  Castile  and  Leon,  prevailed 
upon  her  husband  to  ask  of  Gregory  a  legate  to  reform  the  church, 
and  to  condemn  the  Gothic  or  Mozarabic  ritual,  which  was  jealously 
preserved  by  the  people  as  a  symbol  of  their  independent  nationality. 
The  prayer,  of  course,  was  granted.  Richard,  Abbot  of  Marseilles, 
was  sent,  and  in  1080  he  held  a  council  at  Burgos,  where  he  com¬ 
manded  the  ordained  clergy  to  put  away  their  wives.  The  novelty 
and  hardship  of  this  order  created  great  excitement.  The  pope,  w’ho 
was  rightly  regarded  as  its  author,  became  the  object  of  no  little 
abuse  and  insult,  and  was  held  up  to  popular  derision  in  innumerable 
lampoons.4 

All  of  these  efforts  were  nugatory.  The  Spaniards,  engaged  in  an 
interminable  and  often  doubtful  struggle  with  the  Infidel,  might  well 
claim  consideration  from  the  Holy  Father,  while  the  independent 
spirit  which  they  manifested  in  their  resistance  to  the  introduction  of 


1  Concil.  Gerundens.  arm.  1068  can. 
7,  8  (Labbei  ct  Coleti  T.  XII.).  The 
council  of  Toulouse,  in  1056  (see  ante, 
p.  255),  which  ordered  the  separation 
of  priests  from  their  wives,  undertook 
to  include  Spain  in  its  legislation,  pre¬ 
sumably  meaning  the  eastern  portion 
of  the  Peninsula  which  was  subject  to 
the  Archbishops  of  Narbonne. 


2  Gregor.  VII.  Legist.  Lib.  iv. 
Epist.  28. 

3  Concil.  Gerundens.  ann.  1078 
can.  1,  3,  4,  5  (Labbei  ct  Coleti  T. 
XII.). 

4  Mariana,  loc.  cit. 


HESITATION  IN  ENFORCING  REFORM. 


305 


the  Roman  ritual  was  a  warning  that  it  would  be  prudent  not  to 
proceed  too  abruptly  in  the  process  of  bringing  them  within  the  fold 
of  St.  Peter.  Whatever  be  the  motives,  indeed,  which  induced  such 
strenuous  apostles  of  celibacy  as  Gregory,  Urban,  Paschal,  and 
Calixtus  to  abstain  from  urging  upon  them  the  reform  which  was  so 
earnestly  enforced  elsewhere,  certain  it  is  that  little  effort  was  made 
to  deprive  the  Spanish  clergy  of  their  wdves.  In  all  the  epistles  of 
the  popes  up  to  1130  I  can  find  but  one  allusion  to  the  subject, 
though  communication  between  Spain  and  Italy  became  daily  more 
frequent,  and  the  papal  authority  was  constantly  exercised  with 
greater  decisiveness  in  the  internal  affairs  of  the  Spanish  church. 

When,  in  1101,  Diego  Gelmirez  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  see  of 
Compostella,  Paschal  II.  addressed  him  an  epistle,  reproaching  him 
with  the  utter  contempt  of  discipline  in  his  diocese,  and  commanding 
a  reform.  He  chiefly  complained  of  the  incongruous  common  resi¬ 
dence  of  monks  and  nuns,  wThich  he  severely  condemned  and  per¬ 
emptorily  prohibited,  but  he  made  some  concession  to  the  necessities 
of  the  time  in  permitting  the  ordination  of  the  sons  of  those  priests 
who  had,  “according  to  the  ordinary  custom  of  the  country,”  mar¬ 
ried  prior  to  the  promulgation  of  what  the  pope  significantly  termed 
the  Roman  law;  and  he  carefully  abstained  from  ordering  a  separa¬ 
tion  between  them  and  their  wives,  or  even  an  enforcement  of  the 
canons  for  the  future.1 

Diego,  who  possessed  no  common  measure  of  vigor  and  ambition, 
and  who  needed  the  particular  favor  of  the  popes  for  the  success  of 
his  plans  in  elevating  and  aggrandizing  his  see,  accordingly  proceeded 
to  reform  his  clergy.  There  is  extant  a  minute  and  circumstantial 
contemporary  history  of  his  episcopate,  written  by  his  admiring  dis¬ 
ciples,  who  dwell  with  much  instance  on  his  labors  and  success  in 
reducing  to  discipline  the  refractory  canons  of  his  cathedral  seat ; 
but  in  the  numerous  allusions  to  these  reforms  there  is  no  mention 
of  the  enforcement  of  celibacy,  while  the  fact  that  he  would  not 
allow  them  to  minister  at  the  altar  without  canonical  vestments  is 
made  the  subject  of  repeated  gratulation  and  praise.2  The  absolute 


1  Paschal.  PP.  II.  Epist.  57. 

2  Hist.  Compostellan.  Lib.  i.  cap.  20, 
58,81;  Lib.  n.  cap.  3;  Lib.  in.  cap. 
46. — Even  the  moderate  reforms  in¬ 
troduced  met  with  violent  opposition 
— “  nobis  omnibus,  veluti  bruta  ani- 


malia,  nulla  adhuc  jugali  asperitate 
depressa,  reluctantibus  ”  —  and  only  a 
portion  seem  to  have  submitted  “  quos- 
dam  sibi  acquiescentes  doctrina  et 
operatione  conspicuos  divina  dementia 
reddidit.” 


306 


SPAIN. 


silence  of  the  authors  with  respect  to  the  clergy  at  large  shows  that 
the  reticence  of  Pope  Paschal  was  not  misunderstood,  and  that  there 
was  no  effort  made  to  bring  the  secular  priesthood  under  subjection 
to  the  Iloman  discipline.  In  the  twenty -five  canons  of  the  council 
of  Compostella  in  1113  it  therefore  need  not  surprise  us  that  there 
is  no  reference  whatever  to  the  subject,  beyond  an  allusion  to  the 
children  of  ecclesiastics,  whose  nurses  were  declared  entitled  to 
clerical  privileges,  thus  giving  them  a  recognized  and  highly  prized 
position.1 

That  Diego’s  reforms,  indeed,  did  not  extend  to  the  abrogation  of 
clerical  marriage  is  evident  from  several  incidental  circumstances. 
Thus,  in  1114,  the  lords  of  the  monastery  of  Botoa  made  it  over  to 
the  church  of  Santiago  of  Compostella,  reserving  to  themselves  their 
life  interest,  with  a  reversion  to  any  of  their  descendants  who  should 
be  ecclesiastics,  and  who  might  be  willing  to  profess  celibacy,  show¬ 
ing  that  the  matter  was  optional  with  the  secular  clergy.2  That 
even  the  canons  were  bound  by  no  absolute  rules  on  the  subject  is 
manifested  by  a  very  curious  transaction  which  may  be  worth 
recounting  as  illustrative  in  several  aspects  of  the  spirit  of  the  age. 
In  1127,  Diego,  at  the  head  of  his  Gallician  troops,  accompanied 
Alfonso  VIII.  on  an  expedition  into  Portugal.  On  their  return,  the 
army  halted  at  Compostella,  where  the  archbishop  received  and  enter¬ 
tained  his  sovereign.  They  were  bound  by  the  closest  ties,  for  Diego 
had  baptized,  knighted,  and  crowned  him,  and  had,  moreover,  con¬ 
stantly  stood  his  friend  throughout  his  stormy  youth,  in  the  endless 
civil  wars  w'hicli  marked  the  disastrous  reign  of  his  mother,  Queen 
Urraca.  Yet,  prompted  by  evil  counsellors  who  "were  jealous  of 
Diego,  the  king  suddenly  demanded  of  him  an  enormous  sum  of 
money,  to  pay  off  the  army,  under  threat  of  seizing  and  pillaging 
the  city.  After  considerable  resistance,  Diego  was  forced  to  submit, 
and  to  pay  a  thousand  marks  of  silver.  He  then  sought  a  private 
interview,  in  which  he  solemnly  and  affectionately  warned  Alfonso 
of  the  ruin  of  his  soul  which  would  ensue  if  he  did  not  undergo 
penance  for  thus  impiously  spoiling  the  Apostle  Santiago.  Al¬ 
fonso  listened  humbly,  and  professed  entire  willingness  to  repent, 
but  for  the  difficulty  that  he  had  always  been  taught  that  penitence 
was  fruitless  without  restitution,  and  restitution  he  was  unable  and 

1  Didaci  Decreta,  No.  21  (Hist.  a  Ibid.  Lib.  i.  cap.  100. — “Si  qui  ex 
Compostell.  Lib.  I.  cap.  96).  eorum  progenie  clerici  esse  et  sajcu- 

lariter  continere  vellent.” 


SACERDOTAL  MARRIAGE  NOT  DISTURBED.  307 


unwilling  to  make.  Diego  then  suggested  that  he  should  meet  the 
chapter  and  discuss  the  case,  to  which  he  graciously  assented.  In 
the  assembly  which  followed,  Diego  proposed  that  the  king  should 
follow  the  example  of  his  father,  Raymond  of  Gallicia,  in  commend¬ 
ing  himself  to  the  peculiar  patronage  of  Santiago,  and  in  bequeathing 
his  body  to  be  buried  in  their  church,  promising,  moreover,  that  if 
he  should  do  so  they  would  pray  specially  for  him,  which,  from  the 
promise  of  his  youth,  bade  fair  to  be  no  easy  task.  Alfonso  w'as 
delighted  to  escape  so  easily:  he  eagerly  accepted  the  proposition, 
and  added  that  he  would  like  to  become  a  canon  of  their  church,  in 
order  to  enjoy  the  fullest  possible  share  in  the  Masses  of  such  holy 
men.  To  this  the  chapter  assented  at  once ;  he  was  forthwith  duly 
installed  as  a  canon  of  the  church  which  he  had  just  despoiled,  and 
his  conscience  was  set  at  rest,  while  the  church  felt  that  it  had 
acquired  a  moral  supremacy  over  the  spoiler.1  In  thus  formally 
becoming  a  canon,  there  could  have  been  no  assumption  of  celibacy, 
expressed  or  implied.  Alfonso  was  but  twenty-one  years  of  age, 
and  in  the  following  year  he  married  Berengaria,  daughter  of  the 
Count  of  Barcelona.2 

In  fact,  in  the  absence  of  urgency  on  the  part  of  Rome,  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  sacerdotal  celibacy  seems  to  have  been  virtually  ignored  in 
Spain.  How  little  importance  was  attached  to  the  preeminent  sanc¬ 
tity  of  asceticism  becomes  evident  when  we  are  told  that  in  the  whole 
of  Gallicia  there  was  no  convent  of  nuns  until  Diego,  in  1129, 
founded  the  house  of  S.  Maria  of  Conjo.3  Equal  indifference  is 
manifested  in  the  legislative  assemblies  of  the  church.  The  council 
of  Leon  and  Compostella,  in  1114,  only  prohibited  the  residence  of 
such  women  as  were  forbidden  by  the  canons,4  which,  in  the  existing 
discipline  of  the  Spanish  church,  may  safely  be  presumed  to  offer  no 
impediment  to  the  marriage  relation ;  and  a  synod  held  at  Palencia 
in  1129  is  even  more  significant  in  its  reticence,  for  it  merely  pro¬ 
vides  that  notorious  concubines  of  the  clergy  shall  be  ejected,  without 


1  Hist.  Compostellan.  Lib.  n.  cap. 
87. 

2  The  Spanish  church  was  not  alone 
in  this  looseness  of  discipline  as  regards 
canons.  When  Arthur  of  Britanny 
took  up  arms  against  his  uncle  King 
John,  and  advanced  with  an  army  to 

Tours  at  Easter,  A.  D.  1200,  he  there 

“  more  debito  in  eeclesia  B.  Martini  in 


canonicum  est  receptus,  et  in  stallum 
decani  in  vestibus  chori,  sicut  canoni- 
cus  installatus.”  —  Chron.  Turonens. 
ann.  1200  (Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  Y. 
1038). 

3  Hist.  Compostell.  Lib.  hi.  cap.  11. 

4  Ibid.  Lib.  I.  cap.  101  (Concib 
Legionens.  ann.  1114  can.  8). 


308 


SPAIN. 


apparently  venturing  to  threaten  any  punishment  on  the  reverend 
offenders.1 

Towards  the  close  of  his  restless  life,  however,  Archbishop  Diego 
found  time,  amid  his  military,  political,  and  ecclesiastical  schemes  of 
aggrandizement,  to  undertake  the  much  needed  reform  of  a  single 
monastery.  The  Abbot  of  S.  Pelayo  de  Antealtaria  was  a  paragon 
of  brutish  sensuality,  who  wasted  the  revenues  of  his  house  in  riotous 
living  and  took  no  shame  in  a  numerous  progeny.  The  archbishop 
remonstrated  with  him  long  and  earnestly,  both  in  public  and  pri¬ 
vate  :  seven  times  in  the  general  chapter  of  the  diocese  he  admon¬ 
ished  and  threatened  the  offender  without  result.  At  length,  in 
1130,  after  forbearance  so  remarkable,  Diego  held  a  chapter  in  the 
abbey  for  his  trial,  when  he  was  proved  by  competent  witnesses  to 
have  kept  no  less  than  seventy  concubines.  He  was  accordingly 
deposed,  but  was  so  far  from  being  canonically  punished  that  a  bene¬ 
fice  in  the  abbey  lands  was  assigned  for  his  support.  A  new  abbot 
was  then  appointed,  who  swore  to  observe  the  Benedictine  rule  as 
far  as  he  should  find  himself  able  to  do  so.2  It  is  a  significant  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  state  of  discipline  and  opinion  to  find  so  weak  an 
effort  to  remove  and  punish  the  grossest  licentiousness  characterized 
by  the  biographer  of  Diego  with  the  warmest  expressions  of  wonder¬ 
ing  admiration  as  a  work  which  doubtless  gave  ineffable  satisfaction 
to  the  Divine  Omnipotence,  and  which  was  without  example  in 
previous  history. 

It  is  very  evident  that  the  pontiffs  who  so  energetically  enforced 
the  rule  of  celibacy  throughout  the  rest  of  Europe  were  content  to 
offer  little  opposition  to  the  obstinacy  of  the  Celtiberian  priesthood. 
We  can  safely  conclude,  indeed,  that  matters  were  allowed  to  remain 
virtually  undisturbed,  and  that  the  clergy  were  permitted  to  retain 
their  wives.  A  council  held  in  Gallicia  in  the  early  part  of  the 
thirteenth  century,  for  the  purpose  of  reforming  ecclesiastical  dis¬ 
cipline,  preserves  absolute  silence  on  the  subject  of  marriage  and 
concubinage;3  and,  about  the  middle  of  the  same  century,  we  find 
Alfonso  the  Wise  of  Castile  obliged  to  formally  interdict  matrimony 
to  those  in  holy  orders.  In  the  elaborate  code  drawn  up  by  that 


1  Concil.  Palentin.  ann.  1129  can. 
5. — “  Concubin®  clericorum  manifest® 
ejiciantur.” 


2  Hist.  Compostellan.  Lib.  in.  cap. 
20. — “  Pro  modulo  su®  possibilitatis.” 

3  Concil.  Hispan.  S®c.  XIII.  (Mar- 
tene  Thesaur.  IV.  167). 


THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY. 


309 


monarch  and  known  as  “Las  Siete  Partidas,”  there  is  a  law  punish¬ 
ing  sacerdotal  marriage  with  deprivation  of  function  and  benefice ; 
while  the  wives,  if  vassals  of  the  church,  are  to  be  reduced  to  servi¬ 
tude,  and  if  serfs,  are  to  be  sold  and  the  proceeds  appropriated  for 
the  benefit  of  the  church  of  the  offender.  The  wording  of  the  law 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  was  an  enactment  intended  to  repress 
existing  disorders,  and  not  merely  a  well-known  provision  inserted 
in  the  code  for  the  purpose  of  completing  a  compilation  of  statutes;1 
while  the  existence  in  secular  legislation  of  such  invasions  of  the 
province  of  ecclesiastical  law  is  a  convincing  proof  of  the  continued 
independence  of  Rome  asserted  by  the  Spanish  church  and  state. 
The  prelates  were  further  authorized  to  command  the  assistance  of 
the  secular  power  in  enforcing  these  barbarous  penalties  to  their 
full  measure  of  severity,  and  this  secular  legislation  seems  to  have 
accomplished  what  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  had  so  utterly  failed 
to  effect.  After  this  we  hear  little  of  regular  marriage,  which  was  re¬ 
placed  by  promiscuous  concubinage  or  by  permanent  irregular  unions. 

In  Valencia  a  council  in  1255  prohibited  the  residence  with 
priests  of  all  women,  except  mothers  and  sisters  and  such  others 
as  were  beyond  suspicion,  but  no  penalty  was  prescribed  for  infrac¬ 
tions  of  the  rule ;  and  the  character  of  the  clergy  with  whom  the 
council  had  to  deal  is  sufficiently  shown  by  its  complaint  that  the 
priests  of  the  country  parishes  frequented  the  city  too  much  and 
indulged  there  in  disgraceful  excesses,  for  which  reason  it  forbids 
them  from  visiting  the  city  more  often  than  twice  a  month,  and 
requires  them  to  return  home  the  same  day.2  Arnaldo  de  Peralta, 
Bishop  of  Valencia,  not  long  after,  deplores  the  utter  contempt  with 
which  all  previous  efforts  to  suppress  clerical  concubinage  had  been 
received,  and  the  prevalence  of  the  custom  by  which  ecclesiastics 
endowed  their  bastards  with  the  spoils  of  the  church.  Yet  the  only 
punishment  he  finds  himself  able  to  threaten  is  a  fine  of  thirty 
maravedis  on  public  concubinarians  and  of  five  on  parish  priests  who 
connive  at  such  offences  or  neglect  to  report  them  to  the  bishop. 
Ecclesiastics,  indeed,  are  directed  to  put  away  their  children,  but  no 


1  “  De  los  clerigos  que  casan  a  ben- 
diciones  habiendo  ordenes  sagradas, 
que  pena  deben  haber  ellos  et  aquellas 
con  quien  casan. — Casandose  algunt 
clerigo  que  hobiese  orden  sagrada  non 
debe  linear  sin  pena,  ca  debenle  vedar 
de  oficio,  et  tollerle  el  beneficio  que 


bobiere  de  la  eglesia  por  sentencia  de 
descomulgamiento  fasta  que  la  dexe 
et  faga  penitencia  de  aquel  yerro,  etc." 
— Siete  Partidas,  P.  I.  Tit.  vi.  1.  41. 

2  Concil.  Yalentin.  ann.  1255 
(Aguirre  Y.  197,  201). 


310 


SPAIN. 


penalty  is  indicated  for  disobedience.1  The  council  of  Gerona  in 
125T  was  more  energetic,  for  it  decreed  the  deprivation  of  all  concu- 
binary  priests  who  persisted  in  their  sin,  but  this  apparently  was  not 
effectual,  for  in  1274  the  threat  w^as  repeated,  with  the  addition  that 
the  women  should  be  excommunicated  and  should  receive  after  death 
the  burial  of  asses;2  and  very  similar  was  the  legislation  of  the 
council  of  Penafiel  in  1302.3  However  well  meant  these  efforts 
were,  they  proved  as  useless  as  all  previous  ones,  for  in  1322  the 
council  of  Valladolid,  under  the  presidency  of  the  papal  legate, 
William  Bishop  of  Sabina,  animadverts  strongly  on  the  indecency 
of  ecclesiastics,  from  the  highest  prelates  down,  officiating  at  the 
nuptials  of  their  children,  both  legitimate  and  illegitimate.  For 
those  who  publicly  kept  concubines  it  provides  a  graduated  scale  of 
confiscation,  ending  in  the  deprivation  of  the  persistently  contu¬ 
macious  who  gave  no  prospect  of  amendment,  the  exceedingly  elabo¬ 
rate  regulations  prescribed  showing  at  once  the  difficulty  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  and  the  importance  attached  to  it.  The  acts  of  this  council, 
moreover,  are  interesting  as  presenting  the  first  authentic  evidence 
of  a  custom  which  subsequently  prevailed  to  some  extent  elsewhere, 
by  which  parishioners  were  wont  to  compel  their  priest  to  take  a 
female  consort  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  virtue  of  their 
families  from  his  assaults.  The  iniquity  of  this  precaution  seems  to 
have  especially  scandalized  the  legate,  and  he  treats  the  audacious 
laymen  concerned  in  such  transactions  with  much  less  ceremony  than 
the  concubinary  clergy.4  The  elaborate  regulations  promulgated  by 
this  council  produced  little  effect.  The  council  of  Salamanca  in 
1335  renews  the  previous  repressive  legislation,  adding  a  threat  of 
ipso  facto  excommunication  for  those  who  give  Christian  burial  to 
priestly  concubines,  including  all  who  are  present  on  such  occasions, 
who  are  not  to  be  absolved  until  they  shall  have  paid  a  fine  of  fifty 
maravedis  to  the  cathedral  church.5  At  length,  in  1388,  a  national 
council  held  at  Palencia  under  Cardinal  Pedro  de  Luna,  papal 
legate,  made  a  determined  effort  to  eradicate  the  ineradicable  vice. 
It  renewed  the  regulations  of  the  council  of  Valladolid,  which  it 


1  Constit.  Synodal.  Arnaldi  de  Pe¬ 
ralta  Episc.  Valentin.  (Aguirre  V. 
207-8). 

2  Synod.  Gerund,  ann.  1257  cm.  4; 
ann.  1274  can.  25  (Martene  Ampl. 
Coll.  VIII.  1461,  1469). 


3  Concil.  Penna-fidelens.  ann.  1302 
can.  ii.  (Aguirre  V.  226). 

4  Concil.  Vallis-oletan.  ann.  1322 
can.  vi.  vii.  (Aguirre  V.  243-5). 

5  Concil.  Salmanticens.  ann.  1335 
can.  iii.  (Aguirre  V.  266). 


THE  FOURTEENTH  CENTURY. 


311 


stated  were  not  obeyed,  and  added  to  them  a  clause  by  which  all 
benefices  were  held  under  a  sort  of  tenure  of  chastity,  and  subject 
to  forfeiture.  Besides  this,  all  ecclesiastics  who,  within  two  months 
of  death,  had  kept  concubines,  were  declared  incapable  of  testating, 
and  their  property  was  adjudged,  one-third  to  the  fabric  of  their 
churches,  one-third  to  the  Ordinary  of  the  diocese,  and  one-third  to 
the  fund  for  the  redemption  of  captives  under  the  care  of  the  Orders 
of  Trinidad  and  Mercede,  who  were  empowered  to  seize  their  share. 
Moreover,  all  bishops  were  commanded  to  appoint  official  Visitors, 
who  were  to  report  at  annual  synods,  to  be  held  thereafter,  all  cases 
of  infraction  of  the  rules.1  The  desolation  which  the  enforcement 
of  such  regulations  would  have  wrought  may  be  inferred  from  the 
description  which  a  contemporary,  Alvarez  Pelayo,  Bishop  of  Silva 
in  Portugal,  gives  us  of  his  fellow  ecclesiastics.  He  states  that 
many  of  the  clergy  in  holy  orders  throughout  the  Peninsula  publicly 
associated  themselves  with  women,  frequently  of  noble  blood,  bind¬ 
ing  themselves  against  separation  by  notarial  acts  and  solemn  oaths, 
endowing  their  consorts  with  the  goods  of  the  church,  and  cele¬ 
brating  with  the  kindred  these  illegal  espousals  as  joyously  as 
though  they  were  legitimate  nuptials.  Yet  even  this  flagrant  defi 
ance  of  the  canons  was  better  than  the  wickedness  common  between 
confessors  and  their  penitents,  or  than  the  promiscuous  and  unre¬ 
strained  licentiousness  of  those  who  were  not  fettered  by  the  forms 
of  marriage,  whose  children,  as  Pelayo  asserts,  almost  rivalled  in 
number  those  of  the  laity.2  These  excesses  were  not  suppressed  by 
the  council  of  Palencia.  In  1429  the  council  of  Tortosa,  under  the 
presidency  of  the  Cardinal  de  Foix,  papal  legate,  renewed  the  lament 


1  Concil.  Palentin.  ann.  1388  can.  ii. 
(Aguirre  Y.  298-99). 

2  Et  utinam  nunquam  continentiam 
promisissent,  maxime  Hispani  et  reg- 
nicolae,  in  quibus  provinciis  in  pauco 
maiori  numero  sunt  filii  laicorum  quam 
clericorum  .  .  .  Saepe  cum  parochianis 
mulieribus  quas  ad  confessionem  ad- 
mittunt,  scelestissime  fornicantur  .  .  . 
De  bonis  ecclesiae  pascunt  concubinam 
continue  et  filios,  et  de  pecunia  ecclesiae 
emunt  eis  possessiones.  .  .  .  Multi 
presbyteri  et  alii  constituti  in  sacris, 
maxime  in  Hispania,  in  Asturia  et 
Gallicia  et  alibi,  et  publice  et  aliquoties 
per  publicum  instrumentum  promit- 


tunt  et  jurant  quibusdam,  maxime 
nobilibus  mulieribus,  numquam  eas 
dimittere ;  et  dant  eis  arras  de  bonis 
ecclesiae  et  possessiones  ecclesiae,  publice 
eas  ducunt,  cum  consanguineis  et  amicis 
et  solenni  convivio,  acsi  essent  uxores 
legitimae. — Alv.  Pelag.  de  Planctu  Ec¬ 
clesiae  Lib.  ii.  Art.  xxviii.  (Ed.  1517 
fol.  131-3). 

This  forms  part  of  a  list  of  fifty-four 
charges  brought  by  Pelayo  against  the 
clergy  of  his  time — “peccant  in  his 
communiter.”  If  the  good  bishop  does 
not  exaggerate,  these  ministers  of  Christ 
must  have  been  a  fearful  curse  to  the 
communities  over  which  they  presided 
in  the  name  of  the  Saviour. 


312 


SPAIN. 


that  the  canons  of  Valladolid  remained  unobserved,  and  in  repeating 
them  it  added  a  penalty  of  incarceration  for  pertinacious  offenders, 
indicating,  moreover,  one  of  the  worst  abuses  to  which  the  subject 
gave  rise,  in  forbidding  all  officials  to  take  bribes  from  those  who 
transgressed  the  rules.1  This  effort  was  as  fruitless  as  all  previous 
ones  had  been,  and  we  shall  see  hereafter  that  the  same  state  of 
affairs  continued  until  the  sixteenth  century  was  well  advanced. 


1  Concil.  Dertusan.  ann.  1429  can.  ii.  (Aguirre  V.  335-6). 


XX. 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


In  a  former  section  we  have  seen  the  efforts  made  by  Calixtus  II. 
to  enforce  the  received  discipline  of  the  church,  and  we  have  noted 
the  scanty  measure  of  success  which  attended  his  labors.  He  appar¬ 
ently  himself  recognized  that  they  were  futile,  and  that  some  action 
of  more  decided  character  than  had  as  yet  been  attempted  was  neces¬ 
sary  to  accomplish  the  result  so  long  and  so  energetically  sought, 
and  so  illusory  to  its  ardent  pursuers.  On  his  return  to  Italy,  and 
his  triumph  over  his  unfortunate  rival,  the  anti-pope  Martin  Burdino, 
he  summoned,  in  1128,  the  first  general  council  of  the  West,  to  con¬ 
firm  the  Concordat  of  Worms,  which  had  just  closed  half  a  century 
of  strife  between  the  papacy  and  the  empire.  Nearly  a  thousand 
prelates  obeyed  his  call,  and  that  august  assembly  promulgated  a 
canon  which  not  only  forbade  matrimony  to  those  bound  by  vows 
and  holy  orders,  hut  commanded  that  if  such  marriages  were  con¬ 
tracted  they  should  be  broken,  and  the  parties  to  them  subjected  to 
due  penance.1 

This  was  a  bold  innovation.  With  the  exception  of  a  decretal  of 
Urban  II.  in  1090,  to  which  little  attention  seems  to  have  been  paid, 
we  have  seen  that,  previous  to  Calixtus,  while  the  sacrament  of  mar¬ 
riage  was  held  incompatible  with  the  ministry  of  the  altar  and  with 
the  enjoyment  of  church  property,  it  yet  was  respected  and  its  bind¬ 
ing  force  was  admitted,  even  to  the  point  of  rendering  those  who 
assumed  it  unfitted  for  their  sacred  functions.  At  most,  and  as  a 
concession  to  a  lax  and  irreligious  generation,  the  option  was  allowed 
of  abandoning  either  the  wife  or  the  church.  At  Bheims,  Calixtus 
had  deprived  them  of  this  choice,  and  had  ordered  their  separation 
from  their  wives.  He  now  went  a  step  further,  and  by  the  Lateran 


1  Presbyteris,  diaconibus,  subdiaco- 
nibus  et  monachis  concubinas  habere, 
seu  matrimonia  contrabere,  penitus 
interdicimus :  contracta  quoque  matri¬ 


monia  ab  hujusmodi  personis  disjungi, 
et  personas  ad  poenitentiam  redigi, 
juxta  sacrorum  canonum  diffinitiones 
judicamus. — Concil.  Lateran.  I.  c.  21. 


314 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


canon  lie  declared  the  sacrament  of  marriage  to  be  less  potent  than 
the  religious  vow :  the  engagement  with  the  church  swallowed  up 
and  destroyed  all  other  ties.  This  gave  the  final  seal  to  the  separa¬ 
tion  between  the  clergy  and  the  laity,  by  declaring  the  priestly  char¬ 
acter  to  be  indelible.  When  once  admitted  to  orders,  he  became  a 
being  set  apart  from  his  fellows,  consecrated  to  the  service  of  God ; 
and  the  impassable  gulf  between  him  and  the  laity  bound  him  forever 
to  the  exclusive  interests  of  the  church.  It  is  easy  to  perceive  how 
important  an  element  this  irrevocable  nature  of  sacerdotalism  became 
in  establishing  and  consolidating  the  ecclesiastical  power. 

The  immensity  of  the  change  thus  wrought  in  the  practice,  if  not 
in  the  doctrine,  of  the  church  can  best  be  understood  by  comparing 
the  formal  command  thus  issued  to  the  Christian  world  with  the 
unqualified  condemnation  pronounced  in  earlier  times  against  those 
who  attempted  to  dissolve  marriage  under  religious  pretexts.1  And 
in  all  ages  the  church  has  regarded  the  chastity  of  the  monastic 
orders  as  even  more  imperative  than  that  of  the  secular  clergy. 

Revolutions  never  go  backwards.  Perhaps  the  Lateran  fathers 
who  adopted  the  canon  scarcely  realized  its  logical  conclusions. 
If  they  did,  they  at  all  events  shrank  from  expressing  them  openly 
and  fully,  and  left  the  faithful  to  draw  their  own  deductions  as  to 
the  causes  and  consequences  of  such  an  order.  Time,  however, 
familiarized  the  minds  of  ardent  churchmen  with  the  idea,  and  it  was 
seen  that  if  the  practice  thus  enjoined  was  correct,  doctrine  must  be 
made  to  suit  and  to  justify  it.  To  this  end  an  additional  stimulus 
was  afforded  by  the  failure  of  the  canon  to  accomplish  the  results 
anticipated  from  it,  for  the  custom  of  sacerdotal  marriage  was  as  yet 
by  no  means  eradicated.  The  council  of  Liege,  held  by  Innocent 
II.  in  1131,  referred  to  in  a  preceding  section,  and  those  of  Clermont 
and  Rheims,  over  which  he  likewise  presided,  in  1130  and  1131, 
show  how  little  had  been  accomplished,  and  how  generally  the  clergy 
of  Europe  disregarded  the  restrictions  nominally  imposed  upon  them, 
and  the  punishments  which  they  so  easily  escaped.2  In  the  canons 


1  Thus  Gregory  the  Great,  in  G02 : 
“Si  enim  dicunt  religionis  causa  con- 
jugia  debere  dissolvi  sciendum  est 
quia  etsi  hoc  lex  humana  concessit, 
divina  lex  tamen  prohibuit.” — Gregor. 
I.  Lib.  xi.  Epist.  45. 

And  St.  Augustin:  “  Proinde  qui 
dicunt  talium  nuptias  non  esse  nuptias 
sed  potius  adulteria  non  mihi  videntur 
satis  acute  ac  diligenter  considerare 


quid  dicant  .  .  .  et  cum  volunt  eas 
separatas  reddere  continenti®  faciunt 
maritos  earum  adulteros  veros  etc.” — 
De  Bono  Yiduit.  c.  10. 

2  Decrevimus  ut  ii  qui  a  subdiaco- 
natu  et  supra  uxores  duxerint,  aut 
concubinas  habuerint,  officio  atque 
beneficio  ecclesiastico  carennt. — Con- 
cil.  Claromont.  ann.  1130  can.  4. 


HESITATION  IN  ADMITTING  THE  NEW  RULE.  315 


of  these  councils  not  only  is  it  observable  that  the  question  of  mar¬ 
riage  and  celibacy  is  treated  as  though  it  were  a  matter  now  for  the 
first  time  brought  to  the  attention  of  the  clergy,  but  also  that  the 
innovation  attempted  by  the  council  of  Lateran,  only  seven  or  eight 
years  previous,  is  prudently  suppressed  and  passed  over  without 
even  an  allusion. 


Innocent,  restored  to  Rome  and  to  power,  was  bolder  than  when 
wandering  through  Europe,  soliciting  the  aid  of  the  faithful.  Sur¬ 
rounded  by  a  thousand  bishops  at  the  second  great  council  of  Lateran, 
in  1139,  he  no  longer  dreaded  to  offend  the  susceptibilities  of  the 
clergy,  and  he  proceeded  to  justify  the  canon  of  1123  by  creating  a 
doctrine  to  suit  the  practice  there  enjoined.  After  repeating  the 
canons  of  Clermont  and  Rheims,  he  unhesitatingly  pronounced  that 
a  union  contracted  in  opposition  to  the  rule  of  the  church  was  not  a 
marriage.1  He  draws  no  argument  from  the  conflict  of  sacraments 
assumed  to  be  incompatible ;  a  simple  vow  dissolves  the  sacrament 
of  marriage,  and  renders  it  null  and  void — or  rather  destroys  its 
efficacy  and  anticipates  its  existence. 

The  abounding  wickedness  of  a  perverse  generation  caused  this 
decree  of  the  loftiest  Christian  tribunal  to  fall  still-born  and  abortive 
as  its  forerunners  had  done.2  The  church,  however,  was  irrevocably 
committed  to  the  new  doctrine  and  to  all  its  consequences.  When 
Eugenius  III.  was  driven  out  of  Rome  by  Arnold  of  Brescia,  he 
presided,  in  1148,  over  a  council  held  at  Rheims,  where  eleven 
hundred  bishops  and  abbots  from  Northern  and  Western  Europe 
assembled  to  do  honor  to  the  persecuted  representative  of  St.  Peter, 
and  to  condemn  the  teachings  of  Gilbert  de  la  Porree.  From  this 


This  is  repeated  verbatim  in  the 
council  of  Rheims  in  1131,  canon  4. 

Concerning  the  latter  a  contempo¬ 
rary  observes :  “  Placuit  etiam  domino 
apostolico  et  toti  concilio,  ne  quis  au- 
diat  missam  presbyteri  habentis  con- 
cubinam  vel  uxorem.  Assensu  etiam 
omnium  firmatum  est  ut  clerici  omnes 
a  subdiacono  et  supra  continentes  sint, 
et  qui  non  fuerint  continentes,  depo- 
nantur.” — Udalr.  Babenb.  Cod.  Lib. 
II.  c.  1. 

1  Ut  autem  lex  continents  et  Deo 
placens  munditia  in  ecclesiasticis  per- 
sonis  et  sacris  ordinibus  dilatetur, 
statuimus  quatenus  episcopi,  presby¬ 


teri,  diaconi,  subdiaconi,  regulares 
canonici  et  monachi  atque  conversi 
professi,  qui  sanctum  transgredientes 
propositum  uxores  sibi  copulare  prse- 
sumpserint,  separentur.  Hujusmodi 
namque  copulationem,  quam  contra 
ecclesiasticam  regulam  constat  esse 
contractam,  matrimonium  non  esse 
censemus.  Qui  etiam  ab  invicem  sepa- 
rati,  pro  tantis  excessibus  condignam 
poenitentiam  agant. — Concil.  Lateran. 
II.  ann.  1139  c.  7. 

2  Sed  nimis  abundans  per  universum 
orbem  nequitia  terrigenarum  corda  con¬ 
tra  ecclesiastica  scita  obduravit. — Or- 
deric.  Vital.  P.  ill.  Lib.  xiii.  c.  20. 


316 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 

great  assembly  he  procured  the  confirmation  of  the  new  dogma  by 
their  adoption  of  the  Lateran  canon ;  while  the  repetition  of  that  of 
Clermont  and  Rheims  (of  1130  and  1131)  shows  that  the  evil  which 
it  was  intended  to  repress  still  existed  in  full  force.1  The  vague 
assertion  of  Eugenius  that  he  was  but  following  in  the  footsteps  of 
the  holy  fathers,  and  a  special  reference  to  Innocent  II.  as  his 
authority,  render  it  probable  that  the  members  of  the  council 
demurred  in  committing  themselves  to  the  new  principle,  and  that  it 
was  only  by  showing  that  the  matter  was  already  decided  under  the 
irrefragable  authority  of  a  general  council  that  the  consent  of  the 
Transalpine  churches  was  obtained. 

St.  Bernard  himself,  the  impersonation  of  ascetic  sacerdotalism, 
hesitated  to  subscribe  to  the  new  dogma,  and  when  the  monks  of 
Chartres  asked  him  to  reconcile  it  with  the  teachings  of  Augustin 
and  Gregory  the  Great  he  candidly  confessed  that  his  dialectical  skill 
was  unequal  to  the  task.2  So  when  an  abbot  applied  to  him  for  ad¬ 
vice  in  the  case  of  one  of  his  monks,  who  had  left  the  convent  and 
married,  St.  Bernard  stigmatized  the  act  as  highly  improper,  but 
hesitated  to  pronounce  it  unlawful.  He  recommended  that  an  attempt 
be  made  to  convince  the  parties  that  they  were  perilling  their  salva¬ 
tion,  and  if  this  failed  he  thought  that  perhaps  they  might  be  sepa¬ 
rated  by  episcopal  authority.3  In  fact,  four  years  after  the  council  of 
Rheims,  St.  Bernard  reproached  Eugenius  with  having  caused  the 
adoption  of  canons  which  no  one  pretended  to  obey.  If  he  thought 
that  they  were  enforced,  he  grievously  erred ;  if  he  did  not  think  so, 
he  had  sinned  either  by  decreeing  what  was  not  to  be  observed  or  in 
neglecting  to  punish  their  non-observance — and  no  one  was  punished 
for  his  disobedience.4 

Even  in  Rome  itself  the  point  was  still  disputed.  At  that  very 
time  Gratian,  the  greatest  canonist  of  the  age,  was  engaged  in  the 
compilation  of  his  “  Concordia  discordantium  Canonum,”  a  work 


1  Concil.  Remens.  ann.  1148  can.  3,  8. 
“Sanctorum  patrum  et  praedecessoris 
nostri  Papao  Innocentii  vestigia  inhae- 
rentes,  statuimus  quatenus  episcopi, 
presbyteri,  diaconi,  etc.” 

2  Et  ad  haec  nihil  ad  praesens  certius 
breviusque  respondendum  occurrit,  nisi 
quod  ita  sancti  antistites  sapuerunt : 

rectene?  ipsi  viderint. — Lib.  de  Prae- 

cept.  et  Dispensat.  cap.  xvn. — Abelard 
contrasts  the  contradictory  canons  of 


tlie  church  in  these  matters  in  his  Sic  et 
Non  cap.  cxxn.  It  was  possibly  among 
other  motives  the  skilful  unveiling  of 
ecclesiastical  inconsistencies  in  this 
curious  work  that  led  the  authorities  of 
the  church  to  procure  the  compilation 
of  Gratian’s  “Decretum.” 

3  Bcrnardi  Epist.  lxxvi. 

4  Ejusd.  de  Considerat.  Lib.  ill. 
cap.  v. 


THE  NEW  DOGMA  CONTROV ERTED . 


317 


undertaken  at  the  request  of  the  papal  curia  to  restore  to  the  canon 
law  the  preeminence  which  it  was  fast  losing  in  consequence  of  the 
recently  revived  study  of  the  Justinian  jurisprudence.  Published  in 
1151  under  the  auspices  of  Eugenius  himself,  and  presented  to  the 
world  as  the  authoritative  exposition  of  the  laws  and  discipline  of 
the  church,  it  was  everywhere  received  with  acclamation,  and  has 
remained  to  this  day  the  foundation  of  the  canon  law.  Yet  Gratian 
himself,  in  this  work  without  appeal,  distinctly  declares  his  oppo¬ 
sition  to  the  doctrine  of  Innocent  and  Eugenius,  asserting  that  a 
deacon  can  lawfully  marry  if  he  chooses  to  abandon  the  ministry, 
and  that  the  sacrament  of  marriage  is  so  potent  that  no  antecedent 
vow  can  render  it  void.1 

The  new  law  was  long  in  winning  its  way  to  general  respect,  nor 
can  it  be  a  subject  of  wonder  if  those  who  disregarded  the  acknowl¬ 
edged  canons  of  the  church  by  marrying  in  orders,  or  by  permitting 
such  marriages  in  those  under  their  charge,  should  neglect  a  rule  of 
recent  origin  and  of  more  than  doubtful  propriety.  The  church, 
however,  was  committed  to  it,  and,  moreover,  could  see  in  its  eventual 
recognition  a  more  effectual  means  of  accomplishing  the  long  desired 
object  than  in  any  expedient  previously  tried.  By  destroying  all 
such  marriages,  pronouncing  them  null  and  void,  inflicting  an  inef¬ 
faceable  stigma  on  wife  and  offspring,  subjecting  the  woman  to  the 
certainty  of  being  cast  off  without  resource  and  without  option  on 
the  part  of  the  husband,  the  position  of  the  wife  of  an  ecclesiastic 
would  become  most  unenviable ;  her  kindred  would  prevent  her  from 
exposing  herself  to  such  calamities,  and  no  priest  could  succeed  in 
finding  a  consort  above  the  lowest  class,  whose  union  with  him  would 
expose  him  to  the  contempt  of  his  flock. 

How  slender  was  the  immediate  result  of  the  efforts  of  Innocent 
and  Eugenius,  however,  is  manifested  by  the  allusions  of  Geroch, 
Provost  of  Reichersperg,  who,  writing  about  the  middle  of  the  cen- 


1  Si  vero  diaconus  a  ministerio  ces- 
sare  voluerit,  et  contracto  matrimonio 
licite  potest  uti.  Nam  etsi  in  ordina- 
tione  sua  castitatis  votum  obtulerit, 
tamen  tanta  est  vis  in  Sacramento 
conjugii,  quod  nec  ex  violatione  voti 
potest  dissolvi  ipsum  conjugium. — 
Comment,  in  Can.  i.  Dist.  xxvir. 

The  introduction  of  the  doctrine  of 
Innocent  and  Eugenius  into  the  church 
has  given  rise  to  some  controversy.  In 
the  Encyclical  of  Aug.  22,  1851,  and 


in  the  Syllabus  of  Dec.  1864,  Pius  IX. 
has  condemned  the  error  of  attributing 
it  to  Boniface  VIII.  Some  zealously 
orthodox  writers  have  endeavored  to 
prove  that  the  church  consistently 
maintained  this  doctrine  from  the  be¬ 
ginning,  but  the  contrary  is  admitted 
by  the  greater  number  of  Catholic  au¬ 
thorities.  Cf.  Zaccaria,  Storia  Polem- 
ica,  p.  346-7  and  Bernal  Diaz,  Practice 
Criminalis  Canonica  cap.  74. 


318 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


tury,  complains  that  any  one  who  would  shun  intercourse  wTith 
Nicolitan  and  simoniacal  heretics  must  quit  the  world,  for  it  was  full 
of  them,  and  he  maintains  the  propriety  of  calling  them  heretics 
because  they  openly  defended  and  justified  their  evil  courses.1 
Indeed,  so  shamelessly  wrere  their  transgressions  displayed,  that  the 
faithful  wrere  sometimes  scandalized  by  the  sight  of  the  priests’  wives 
assisting  their  husbands  in  the  ministry  of  the  altar;2  while  con¬ 
ventual  discipline  had  sunk  so  low  that  nuns  were  in  the  habit  of 
deferring  their  formal  vows  until  the  lassitude  of  old  age  should 
render  the  restraints  thereby  assumed  easy  to  be  endured,3  and 
canons  led  a  life  which  was  only  distinguishable  from  that  of  the 
laity  by  its  shamelessness.4  Nor  was  this  confined  to  Germany.  In 
France,  Hugh,  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  complains  that  those  who 
married  in  orders  openly  defended  their  evil  practices  and  quoted 
Scripture  to  sustain  themselves.5 

In  England,  as  seen  in  a  preceding  section,  the  new  theory  of 
Innocent  and  Eugenius  remained  a  dead  letter.  Indeed,  as  late  as 
1470  Sir  John  Fortescue  incidentally  alludes  to  a  recent  case  in 
which  a  priest  named  John  Fringe,  wTho  had  lived  in  orders  for  three 
years,  procured  two  false  witnesses  to  swear  that  he  had  previously 
been  betrothed  to  a  certain  maiden,  and  this  preliminary  promise  of 
marriage  was  held  by  court  to  supersede  his  priestly  ordination;  he 
was  ejected  from  the  priesthood  and  compelled  to  marry  the  girl,  with 
whom  he  lived  fourteen  years,  until  he  was  executed  for  treason 
by  the  Lancastrians  during  the  wrars  of  the  Roses.6  In  Spain,  as 
we  have  already  seen,  priestly  marriage  was  forbidden  by  the  secular 
law  as  late  as  the  latter  half  of  the  thirteenth  century,  and  priests  in 


1  Gerhohi  Tract,  adv.  Simoniac.  c.  2. 
— About  the  year  1140,  we  find  St. 
Bernard  (Epist.  203)  writing  to  the 
bishop  and  clergy  of  Treves,  urging 
them  to  labor  for  the  reformation  of  a 
married  subdeacon  of  their  church, 
in  terms  which  show  that  no  severe 
application  of  the  canons  was  to  be 
expected. 

2  Gerhohi  Exposit.  in  Psalm  lxiv. 
cap.  xlix. 

3  Gerhohi  Exposit.  in  Psalm  lxiv. 

c.  xxxv.  An  allusion  in  this  passage 

to  Eugenius  III.  and  the  council  of 

Rheims  shows  that  it  was  written  be¬ 
tween  1148  and  1153.  It  seems  that 
the  nuns  rebelled  against  the  canon 


(Concil.  Remens.  ann.  1148  can.  iv.) 
confining  them  to  their  convents 
under  threat  of  deprivation  of  Chris¬ 
tian  sepulture. 

*  Ibid.  cap.  xlvi. 

5  Ilugon.  Rothomag.  contra  Haeret. 
Lib.  hi.  cap.  v. — Hugh  gives  us  in  a 
new  form  the  old  calculation  as  to  the 
comparative  merits  of  virginity,  conti¬ 
nence,  and  marriage — “  Non  centesimo 
honore  cum  virginibus  gloriatur,  non 
sexagesima  continentiae  palma  laetatur, 
sed  tricesimo  conjugii  labore  fatigatur.  ” 

0  Fortescue  de  Laud.  Leg.  Angl.  cap. 
xxi. — Fortescue  speaks  of  the  case  as 
having  occurred  within  his  own  knowl¬ 
edge. 


ALEXANDER  III. 


319 


consequence  were  wont  to  protect  their  partners  by  entering  into 
the  most  solemn  compacts,  the  customary  employment  of  wThich 
shows  that  they  must  have  been  habitually  enforced  by  the  municipal 
tribunals  regardless  of  the  censures  of  the  church. 


The  long  pontificate  of  Alexander  III.,  extending  from  1159  to 
1181,  was  absorbed  for  the  most  part  by  his  deadly  strife  with  Fred¬ 
eric  Barbarossa.  Yet,  even  before  he  was  released  from  that  ever¬ 
present  danger,  he  found  leisure  to  urge  the  cause  of  sacerdotal 
celibacy;  and  after  the  humiliation  of  his  mortal  enemy  he  devoted 
himself  to  it  with  a  zeal  which  earned  for  him  among  his  contempo¬ 
raries  the  credit  of  establishing  its  observance.1  He  who,  as  the 
legate  Roland,  had  nearly  paid,  under  the  avenging  sword  of  Otho 
of  Wittelsbach,  the  forfeit  of  his  life  for  his  rude  boldness  at  the 
imperial  court,  was  little  likely  to  abate  one  jot  of  the  claims  which 
the  church  asserted  on  the  obedience  of  layman  and  clerk ;  and  he 
recognized  too  fully  the  potency  of  the  canons  of  Lateran  and 
Rheims  not  to  insist  upon  their  observance.  The  very  necessity  under 
which  he  found  himself,  however,  of  repeating  those  canons  shows 
how  utterly  neglected  they  had  been,  and  how  successfully  the  clergy 
had  thus  far  resisted  their  reception  and  acknowledgment.  Thus 
when,  in  1163,  he  held  the  council  of  Tours,  he  was  obliged  to  con¬ 
tent  himself  with  a  canon  which  allowed  three  warnings  to  those 
who  publicly  kept  concubines,  and  it  was  only  after  neglect  of  these 
warnings  that  they  were  threatened  with  deprivation  of  functions 
and  benefice;2  and  when,  in  1172,  his  legates  presided  over  the 
council  of  Avranches,  which  absolved  Henry  II.  for  the  murder  of 
A’Becket,  the  Norman  clergy  were  emphatically  reminded  that  those 
who  married  in  holy  orders  must  put  away  their  wives,  and  this  in 
terms  which  indicate  that  the  rule  had  not  been  previously  obeyed.3 


1  Et  constituit  ut  nullus  in  sacris 
ordinibus  habeat  uxorem  vel  concu- 
binam. — Chron.  S.  iEgid.  in  Brunswig. 

2  Concil.  Turon.  ann.  1163  can.  4 
(MS.  St.  Michael,  ap.  Harduin.  Tom. 
YI.  P.  ii.  p.  1600). 

3  Qui  autem  a  subdiaconatu  vel  su¬ 
pra  ad  matrimonia  convolaverint, 
mulieres  etiam  invitas  et  renitentes 
relinquant. — Concil.  Abrincens.  ann. 
1172  c.  1.  I  give  this  on  the  authority 
of  the  Abate  Zaccaria  (Nuova  Giusti- 
ficazione  del  Celibato  Sacro  p.  120) ; 
there  is  no  such  canon  among  those 


attributed  to  the  council  by  Hardouin 
(T.  YI.  P.  ii.  p.  1634),  and  by  Bessin 
(Concil.  Rotomagensia,  p.  86),  whose 
accounts  of  the  proceedings  are  ex¬ 
tracted  from  Roger  of  Hoveden  and 
tally  with  that  given  in  the  Gesta 
Henrici  II.  attributed  to  Benedict  of 
Peterboro  (I.  33.  M.  R.  Series).  As  a 
number  of  canons  proposed  by  the 
papal  legates,  Cardinals  Theodwin  and 
Albert,  were  rejected  by  the  Norman 
bishops,  it  is  possible  that  the  local 
reports  and  those  current  at  Rome  may 
have  differed. 


320 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


Yet  notwithstanding  this  formal  declaration,  only  a  few  years  later 
we  find  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims  applying  to  him  for  counsel  in 
the  case  of  a  deacon  who  had  committed  matrimony,  to  which  Alex¬ 
ander  of  course  replied  that  the  marriage  was  no  marriage,  and  that 
the  offending  ecclesiastic  must  be  separated  from  the  woman,  and 
undergo  due  penance.1  The  persistence  of  the  pope,  and  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  his  urgency,  are  farther  shown  by  sundry  epistles  to  various 
English  bishops,  in  which  the  rule  is  enunciated  as  absolute  and  un¬ 
varying;2  and  he  takes  occasion  to  stigmatize  such  marriages  with 
the  most  degrading  epithet,  when  he  graciously  pardons  those  con¬ 
cerned,  and  permits  their  restitution  after  a  long  course  of  penitence, 
on  their  giving  evidence  of  a  reformed  life.3 

Yet  even  Alexander  was  forced  to  abate  somewhat  of  his  stern 
determination,  in  consideration  of  the  incorrigible  perversity  of  the 
time,  though  he  seems  not  to  have  remarked  that  he  abandoned  the 
principle  by  admitting  exceptions,  and  that  the  reasons  assigned  in 
such  individual  cases  might,  with  equal  cogency,  be  applied  to  the 
total  withdrawal  of  the  rule.  When  the  Calabrian  bishops  informed 
him  that  clerks  in  holy  orders  throughout  their  dioceses  committed 
matrimony,  he  ordered  that  priests  and  deacons  should  be  irrevocably 
separated  from  their  wives  ;  but,  in  the  case  of  subdeacons  of  doubtful 
morals,  he  instructed  the  prelates  that  they  should  tacitly  connive  at 
the  irregularity,  lest  in  place  of  one  woman,  many  should  be  abused, 
and  a  greater  evil  be  incurred,  in  the  endeavor  to  avoid  a  less.4  This 
worldly  wisdom  also  dictated  his  orders  to  the  Bishop  of  Exeter,  in 
whose  diocese  subdeacons  were  in  the  habit  of  openly  marrying.  He 
directs  an  examination  into  the  lives  and  characters  of  the  offenders ; 
those  whose  regular  habits  and  staid  morality  afford  fair  expectation 
of  their  chastity  in  celibacy  are  to  be  forcibly  separated  from  their 
wives  ;  while  those  whose  disorderly  character  renders  probable  their 
general  licentiousness  if  condemned  to  a  single  life  are  not  to  be  dis¬ 
turbed — taking  care,  however,  that  they  do  not  minister  at  the  altar, 
or  receive  ecclesiastical  benificcs.5 


1  Post  Concil.  Lateran.  P.  xvm. 
c.  12. 

2  Post  Concil.  Lateran.  P.  xvm. 
c.  2,  6. 

3  Sane  sacerdotes  illi,  qui  nuptias 
contrahunt,  quao  non  nupti®  sed  con- 

tubernia  sunt  potius  nuncupanda, 

post  longam  pcenitentiam  et  vitam 


laudabilem  continentes,  officio  suo 
restitui  poterunt,  et  ex  indulgentia 
sui  episcopi  ejus  exsecutionem  habere. 
— Can.  4  Extra,  Tit.  iii.  Lib.  ill. 

4  Post  Concil.  Lateran.  P.  xviii. 
c.  4. 

5  Post  Concil.  Lateran.  P.  xviii.  c. 
13. — In  a  decretal  addressed  to  the  Dean 


HEREDITARY  BENEFICES. 


321 


Alexander  adopted  the  principle  that  a  simple  vow  of  chastity  did 
not  prevent  marriage  or  render  it  null,  but  that  a  formal  vow,  or  the 
reception  of  orders,  created  a  dissolution  of  marriage,  or  a  total  in¬ 
ability  to  enter  into  it  ;l  but  Celestin  III.  carried  the  principle  still 
farther,  and  decreed  that  a  simple  vow,  while  it  did  not  dissolve  an 
existing  connection,  was  sufficient  to  prevent  a  future  one.2 

Alexander  did  not  confine  himself  to  this  portion  of  the  question, 
but  with  ceaseless  activity  labored  to  enforce  the  observance  of  celi¬ 
bacy  in  general,  and  to  repress  the  immorality  which  disgraced  the 
church  throughout  Christendom — immorality  which  led  Alain  de 
l’Xsle,  the  “  Universal  Doctor,”  to  characterize  the  ecclesiastics  of 
his  time  as  being  old  men  in  their  inefficiency  and  young  men  in 
their  unbridled  passions.3  Alexander’s  efforts  were  particularly 
directed  to  put  an  end  to  the  practice  of  hereditary  priesthood,  and 
its  constant  consequence,  hereditary  benefices.  If  I  have  made  little 
allusion  to  this  subject  during  the  century  under  consideration,  it  is 
not  that  the  church  had  relaxed  her  exertions  to  place  some  limit  on 
this  apparently  incurable  disorder,  or  that  the  passive  resistance  to 
her  efforts  had  been  less  successful  than  we  have  seen  it  on  previous 
occasions.  The  perpetual  injunctions  of  Alexander  show  at  once 
the  universality  of  the  vice,  and  the  determination  of  the  pontiff  to 
eradicate  it.  At  the  same  time  it  became  a  frequent,  and  no  doubt 
a  profitable  portion  of  the  duties  of  the  papal  chancery,  to  grant 
special  dispensations  when  those  who  held  such  preferment,  or  who 
desired  to  retain  their  wives,  underwent  the  dangers  and  expense  of 
a  journey  to  Rome,  and  were  rewarded  for  their  confidence  in  the 
benignity  of  the  Holy  Father  by  a  rescript  to  their  bishops,  com¬ 
manding  their  reinstatement  in  the  benefices  from  which  they  had 


and  Chapter  of  Lincoln,  Alexander 
grants  permission  of  marriage  to  a  cer¬ 
tain  subdeacon,  and  forbids  interference 
with  such  legitimate  marriage,  giving 
as  a  reason  that  the  subdiaconate  of  the 
person  referred  to  carried  with  it  no  pre¬ 
ferment. — Ibid.  c.  14. 

1  Post  Concil.  Lateran.  P.  vi.  c.  9. 

2  Votum  simplex  impedit  sponsalia 
de  futuro,  non  autem  dirimit  matri- 
monium  sequens  ;  secus  in  voto  solenni. 
— Can.  6  Extra  Lib.  iv.  Tit.  vi. 

The  practical  rule  deduced  by  a 


shrewd  lawyer  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
thirteenth  century  from  this  varying 
legislation  is,  “Note  deus  relies;  que 
simple  vou  et  sollempnie  lie  maeme 
quant  a  Deu  ;  et  simple  vou  empeche  a 
marier,  mes  il  ne  tost  pas  ce  qui  est  fet ; 
et  note  que  vou,  de  la  nature  de  soi,  ne 
depiece  pas  mariage,  mes  c’est  de  con- 
stitucion  d’yglise” — (Livres  de  Jostice 
et  de  Piet,  Liv.  x.  chap.  vi.  $  6).  This 
is  likewise  the  conclusion  reached  by 
Thomas  Aquinas,  Summ.  Theol.  Supp. 
Quoest.  liii.  Art.  i.  ii. 

3  Alani  ab  Insulis  Lib.  Pcenitentialis. 


21 


322 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


been  ejected.1  The  power  to  grant  such  dispensations  was  shrewdly 
reserved  as  the  exclusive  privilege  of  the  papal  court  ;2  and  a  high 
churchman  of  the  period  assures  us  that  there  was  no  difficulty  in 
obtaining  them.3  It  need  not,  therefore,  surprise  us  that  Alexander’s 
successor,  Lucius  III.,  found  the  hereditary  transmission  of  the 
priestly  office  claimed  as  an  absolute  right.4  And  not  only  did  the 
claims  of  the  papal  chancery  thus  interfere  with  the  execution  of  the 
law  by  its  power  of  granting  dispensations,  but  its  appellate  juris¬ 
diction  was  constantly  used  to  avert  punishment  from  the  worst  of¬ 
fenders.  Thus  Lucius  III.,  about  the  year  1181  was  obliged  to  grant 
to  Maurice  de  Sully,  Bishop  of  Paris,  the  right  to  dispossess  of  their 
benefices  and  functions,  without  appeal,  certain  notorious  concu- 
binarians  who,  on  being  threatened  with  the  application  of  the  law, 
had  defied  him  by  interposing  an  appeal  to  Rome.5  This  centraliza¬ 
tion  of  all  power  in  the  papal  court,  and  the  unblushing  venality  of 
the  Roman  officials,  meet  us  in  every  age  as  the  efficient  obstacle  to 
the  efforts  of  reforming  prelates  throughout  Europe. 

The  uncertainty  of  this  conflicting  legislation,  at  times  enforced, 
and  at  times  dispensed  with  by  the  supreme  power,  led  to  innumer¬ 
able  complications  and  endless  perplexity  in  private  life.  Indeed,  a 
large  portion  of  the  canons  are  founded  on  responses  given  by  the 
popes  to  settle  cases  of  peculiar  difficulty  arising  from  ignorance  or 
neglect  of  the  discipline  enjoined,  and  many  of  these  reveal  extreme 
hardship  inflicted  on  those  who  could  be  convicted  of  no  intentional 
guilt.  Perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  instance  of  the  troubles  caused 
by  the  new  regulations  was  that  of  Bossaert  d’Avesnes,  which  resulted 
in  a  desperate  war  to  determine  the  possession  of  the  rich  provinces 
of  Flanders  and  Hainault.  As  it  illustrates  the  doubts  wffiich  still 
environed  these  particular  points,  and  the  conflicting  decisions  to 
which  they  wTere  liable,  even  from  the  infallibility  of  successive  popes, 
it  may  be  worth  briefly  sketching  here. 


1  Post.  Concil.  Lateran.  P.  xix.  c.  1, 
2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  9,  10.— Can.  10,  11,  12, 
14,  Extra  Lib.  I.  Tit.  xvii. 

2  Can.  17,  18,  Extra  Lib.  i.  Tit.  xvii. 

3  Quia  de  talibus  absque  difficultate 
curia  Roraana  dispensat,  quia  et  de 

subdiaconibus  quibusdam  audivimus  a 
domino  Papa  dispensatum.  —  Girald. 

Cambrens.  Gcmm.  Eccles.  Dist.  n. 
cap.  v. 


4  Consuetudinem  introductam  quod 
filii  eorum  qui  vestras  ecclesias  tenue- 
runt.  .  .  .  patribus  .  .  .  consecuti,  sub 
reprehensibili  collusione  volunt  ipsas 
ecclesias  jure  successionis  habere,  etc. — 
Lucii.  PP.  III.  Epist.  88. — Cf.  Concil. 
Rotomag.  ann.  1189  can.  vi. 

5  Chartular.  Eccles.  Parisiens.  No. 
xx.  T.  I.  p.  35. 


323 


BOSSAERT  D’AYESNES. 

When  Baldwin  of  Flanders,  Emperor  of  Constantinople,  died  in 
1206,  his  eldest  daughter  Jane  succeeded  to  his  territories  of  Flanders 
and  Hainault,  while  his  second  child,  Margaret,  was  placed  under  the 
guardianship  of  Bossaert  d’Avesnes.  Bossaert  was  a  relative  of  her 
mother,  Mary  of  Champagne,  and  though  he  held  the  comparatively 
insignificant  position  of  chantre  of  Tournay,  he  was  yet  a  man  of 
great  repute  and  influence.  With  the  assent  and  approbation  of  the 
estates  of  Flanders,  Margaret  and  Bossaert  were  married,  the  issue 
of  the  union  being  three  sons.  Whether  the  fact  of  his  having 
received  the  subdiaconate  was  publicly  known  or  not  is  somewhat 
doubtful ;  but  he  seems  at  length  to  have  been  awakened  to  a  sense 
of  his  uncertain  position,  when  he  went  to  Borne  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  a  dispensation  and  legitimating  his  children.  Innocent  III. 
not  only  refused  the  application,  but  commanded  him  to  restore 
Margaret  to  her  relatives  and  to  do  penance  by  a  pilgrimage  to  the 
Holy  Land.  Disregarding  these  injunctions,  he  lived  openly  with 
his  wife  after  his  return  and  was  excommunicated  in  consequence. 
At  length  Margaret  left  him  and  married  Guillaume  de  Dampierre, 
while  Bossaert  was  assassinated  during  a  second  visit  to  Borne, 
where  he  was  seeking  reconciliation  to  the  church.  When  at  last, 
in  1244,  the  Countess  Jane  closed  her  long  and  weary  career  by 
assuming  the  veil  at  Marquette,  without  leaving  heirs,  the  children 
of  Margaret  by  both  marriages  claimed  the  succession,  and  Margaret 
favored  the  younger,  asserting,  without  scruple,  that  her  elder  sons 
were  illegitimate.  The  difficult  question  was  referred  to  St.  Louis 
for  arbitration,  and  in  124T  the  good  king  assigned  Flanders  to 
Gui  de  Dampierre  and  Hainault  to  Jean  d’Avesnes,  thus  recognizing 
both  marriages  as  legitimate.  This,  of  course,  satisfied  neither  party. 
Innocent  IV.  was  appealed  to,  and  in  1248  he  sent  commissioners  to 
investigate  the  knotty  affair.  They  reported  that  the  marriage  of 
Bossaert  had  been  contracted  in  the  face  of  all  Flanders,  and  that 
the  d’Avesnes  were  legitimate,  which  judgment  was  confirmed  by 
Innocent  himself  in  1252.  Thus  fortified,  Jean  d’Avesnes  resisted 
the  proposed  partition,  and  a  bloody  civil  war  arose.  The  victory 
of  Vacheren  placed  the  Dampierre  in  the  hands  of  their  half-brothers, 
and  promised  to  be  decisive,  until  Margaret  called  in  Charles  de 
Valois,  bribing  him  with  the  offer  of  Hainault  to  complete  the  dis¬ 
inheriting  of  her  first-born.  The  war  continued  until  Louis,  re- 


324 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


turning  from  the  East  in  1255,  compelled  the  combatants  to  lay  down 
their  arms,  and  to  abide  by  his  arbitration.1 

In  this  case  we  see  Innocent  III.  deciding  that  marriage  was  in¬ 
compatible  with  the  subdiaconate.  Yet  it  is  a  striking  illustration 
of  the  uncertainty  which  still  surrounded  the  matter  to  find  the  same 
pope,  in  1208,  commanding  a  subdeacon  of  Laon  to  return  to  the 
wife  whom  he  had  abandoned  on  taking  orders,  and  to  treat  her  in 
all  respects  as  a  wife.  Innocent  is  not  to  be  suspected  of  any  tem¬ 
porizing  concession  to  prevailing  laxity,  and  yet  in  this  case  he 
overruled  the  uninterrupted  tradition  of  the  canons  that  married 
men  taking  orders  should  thenceforth  treat  their  wives  as  sisters ; 
and  the  doubts  which  experienced  ecclesiastics  entertained  with 
regard  to  the  law  are  visible  in  the  fact  that  when  the  wife  com¬ 
plained  of  her  abandonment  to  the  metropolitan  authorities  at 
Itheims  they  did  not  pretend  to  give  judgment,  but  sent  the  testi¬ 
mony  in  the  case  at  once  to  Innocent  for  his  decision.2 

Another  curious  case  occurring  about  the  same  time  illustrates  the 
complexity  of  the  questions  which  arose  and  the  manner  in  which 
the  selfishness  of  ascetic  zeal  sometimes  eluded  even  the  very  slender 
barriers  with  which  the  church  limited  its  gratification.  As  we  have 
seen,  it  was  an  ancient  rule  that  no  man  could  assume  monastic 
vows  without  the  assent  of  "his  wife,  with  the  additional  condi¬ 
tion  that  she  must  at  the  same  time  enter  a  nunnery.  It  ap¬ 
pears  that  a  husband  desiring  to  become  a  monk,  and  finding  his 
wife  obstinately  opposed  to  his  designs,  enlisted  the  services  of 
various  priests  to  influence  her,  carefully  concealing  from  her  the 
obligation  which  her  assent  would  impose  upon  her  to  take  the  veil. 
Still  she  obstinately  refused,  until  at  last  he  threatened  to  castrate 
himself,  when  she  yielded  and  went  through  the  ceremony  of  placing 
with  her  own  hands  his  head  on  the  altar.  The  wife  thus  abandoned 
took  to  evil  courses,  and  the  husband-monk  applied  in  person  to 
Innocent  III.  to  learn  whether  he  ought  to  remain  in  his  order, 
seeing  that  his  continence  might  be  responsible  for  her  unchastity. 
In  spite  of  the  deceit  practised  upon  the  wife,  Innocent  resolved  his 
doubts  in  favor  of  the  maintenance  of  his  vows,  giving  as  a  reason 


1  D’Oudegherst,  Annales  de  Flandre,  cent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  Append,  ad  Lib. 
chap.  cm. — Baluz.  et  Mansi  T.  i. —  xiv. 

Miraji  Diplom.  Lib.  I.  c.  88. — Grandes 
Chroniques,  T.  IY.  pp.  339-42. — Inno- 


2  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  xi.  204. 


ABROGATION  OF  CELIBACY  CONSIDERED.  325 


that  her  adulteries  deprived  her  of  claim  on  him.  At  the  same  time, 
nothing  was  said  as  to  compelling  the  woman  to  take  the  veil.1 


In  view  of  these  perplexities,  it  is  no  wonder  that  even  the  resolute 
spirit  of  Alexander  III.,  dismayed  at  the  arduous  nature  of  the 
struggle,  or  appalled  at  the  ineradicable  vices  which  defied  even 
papal  authority,  at  times  shrank  from  the  contest  and  was  ready  to 
abandon  the  principle.  If  we  may  believe  Giraldus  Cambrensis, 
who,  as  a  contemporary  intimately  connected  with  the  highest 
ecclesiastical  authorities  in  England,  was  not  likely  to  be  mistaken, 
and  whose  long  sojourn  at  the  court  of  Innocent  III.  would  have 
afforded  him  ample  opportunities  of  correcting  a  misstatement, 
Alexander  had  once  resolved  to  introduce  the  discipline  of  the  Greek 
church  in  Western  Europe,  permitting  single  marriages  with  virgins. 
To  this  he  had  obtained  the  assent  of  his  whole  court,  except  his 
chancellor  Albert,  who  was  afterwards  pope  under  the  name  of 
Gregory  VIII.  The  resistance  of  this  dignitary  was  so  powerful 
as  to  cause  the  abandonment  of  the  project.2  Alexander,  indeed, 
was  not  alone  in  this  conviction.  Giraldus  himself  was  fully  con¬ 
vinced  that  such  a  change  would  be  most  useful  to  the  church, 
though  as  archdeacon  of  St.  David’s  he  had  displayed  his  zeal  for 
the  enforcement  of  the  canon  by  measures  too  energetic  for  the  de¬ 
generacy  of  the  age,  and  though  he  occupies,  in  his  “  Gemma  Eccle- 
siastica,”  twenty-one  chapters  with  an  exhortation  to  his  clergy  to 
abandon  their  evil  courses.3  Men  of  high  character  did  not  hesitate 
to  take  even  stronger  ground  against  the  rule.  The  celebrated  Peter 
Comestor,  whose  orthodoxy  is  unquestioned,  taught  publicly  in  his 
lectures  that  the  devil  had  never  inflicted  so  severe  a  blow  on  the 
church  as  in  procuring  the  adoption  of  celibacy.4 


1  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  xn.  13. 

2  Girald.  Cambrens.  Gemm.  Eccles. 
Dist.  ii.  cap.  vi. 

The  “Gemma”  was  the  favorite 
work,  of  its  author,  who  relates  with 
pride  the  approbation  specially  bestowed 
upon  it  by  Innocent  III. 

3  Yet  so  hopeless  was  this  well-in¬ 
tentioned  attempt,  that  Giraldus  is 
willing  to  let  off  his  recalcitrant  clergy 
with  the  simple  restriction  demanded 
of  the  laity — abstinence  for  three  days 
previous  to  partaking  of  the  communion. 
“  Qui  igitur  in  immunditiae  veluti  suo 


volutabro  volvitur  adhuc  et  versatur, 
hanc  saltern  altari  sacro  et  sacrificiis 
reverentiam  sacerdos  exhibeat,  ut  vel 
tribus  diebus  et  noctibus  priusquam 
corpus  Christi  consecrare  praesumat 
mundum  .  .  .  vas  custodiat.” — Ibid, 
cap.  vi. 

4  Hocautemmagistrum  PetrumMan- 
ducatorem  in  audientia  totius  scholae 
suae  quae  tot  et  tantis  viris  literatissimis 
referta  fuit  dicentem  audivi,  quia 
nunquam  hostis  ille  antiquus  in  aliquo 
articulo,  adeo  ecclesiam  Dei  circum- 
venit,  sicut  in  voti  illius  emissione. — 
Ibid.  cap.  vi. 


326 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


These  were  but  individual  opinions.  The  policy  of  the  church 
remained  unaltered,  and  Alexander’s  successors  emulated  his  example 
in  endeavoring  to  enforce  the  canons.  Clement  III.  took  advantage 
of  the  profound  impression  which  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Saladin 
(Oct.  1187)  produced  on  all  Europe,  when  the  fall  of  the  Latin 
kingdom  wTas  attributed  to  the  sins  of  Christendom.  He  preached  a 
general  reformation.  Abstinence  from  meat  on  Wednesdays  and 
Saturdays  for  five  years,  and  various  other  kinds  of  mortification 
were  enjoined  on  all,  to  propitiate  a  justly  offended  Deity,  but  the 
clergy  were  the  objects  of  special  reproof.  Their  extreme  laxity  of 
morals,  their  neglect  of  the  dress  of  their  order,  their  w'orldly  ambi¬ 
tion  and  pursuits,  drinking,  gambling,  and  flocking  to  tournaments, 
and  the  unclerical  deportment  which  left  little  difference  between 
them  and  the  laity,  were  some  of  the  accusations  brought  against 
them.  To  their  incontinence,  however,  was  chiefly  attributed  the 
wrath  of  God,  besides  the  measureless  scandals  to  which  their 
conduct  exposed  the  church,  and  they  were  commanded  to  remove 
all  suspected  females  from  their  houses  within  forty  days,  under  pain 
of  suspension  from  their  functions  and  revenues.1  That  these  rebukes 
were  not  the  mere  angry  declamation  of  an  ascetic  is  shown  by  the 
declaration  of  Celestin  III.,  a  few  years  later,  that  throughout 
Germany  the  custom  still  prevailed  of  fathers  substituting  in  their 
benefices  their  sons,  born  during  priesthood,  so  that  frequently 
parent  and  offspring  ministered  together  in  the  same  church  ;2  and 
the  extent  of  the  demoralization  is  evident  when  we  find  the  sons  of 
priests  and  deacons  alluded  to  as  a  class  ineligible  to  knighthood  in 
a  constitution  of  Frederic  Barbarossa  in  11 87. 3  The  regular  clergy 
offered  no  exception  to  the  general  relaxation  of  discipline.  In  1192 
Odo,  Bishop  of  Toul,  felt  himself  forced  to  deplore  the  wickedness  of 
monks  who  left  their  monasteries  and  publicly  took  to  themselves 
wives,  but  he  could  devise  no  better  means  of  arresting  the  scandal 
than  excommunicating  them  and  their  growing  families.4 

Yet,  with  all  his  ardor,  Clement  admitted  that  celibacy  was  only 
a  local  rule  of  discipline,  and  that  there  wras  nothing  really  in- 


1  Epist.  Henr.  Card.  Albanens. 
(Ludewig,  Bel.  Msctor.  II.  441). 

2  Baluz.  et  Mansi  III.  380. 

3  De  filiis  quoque  sacerdotum,  dia- 
conorum,  rusticorum,  statuimus,  ne 

cingulum  militare  aliquatenus  assu- 


mant;  et  qui  jam  assumpserunt,  per 
judicem  provincia?  a  militia  pellantur. 
— Feudor.  Lib.  v.  Tit.  x. — Conf.  Conr. 
Urspergens.  ann.  1187. 

4  Statut.  Synod.  Odon.  Tullens.  cap. 
vi.  (Hartzheim  III.  456). 


FOURTH  COUNCIL  OF  LATERAN. 


327 


compatible  between  marriage  and  the  holy  functions  of  the  altar. 
The  time  had  not  yet  come  when  the  council  of  Trent  could 
erect  the  inviolable  continence  of  the  priesthood  into  an  article 
of  faith,  and  Clement  was  willing  to  allow  that  priests  of  the 
Greek  church,  under  his  jurisdiction,  could  legitimately  be  married 
and  could  celebrate  mass  while  their  families  were  increasing  around 
them.1 

Innocent  III.,  who,  by  the  fortunate  conjunction  of  the  time  in 
which  he  flourished  with  his  own  matchless  force  of  character,  en¬ 
joyed  perhaps  the  culmination  of  papal  power  and  prerogative,  at 
length  brought  to  the  struggle  an  influence  and  a  determination 
which  could  scarcely  fail  to  prove  decisive  on  any  question  capable 
of  a  favorable  solution.  By  his  decretals  and  his  legates  he  labored 
assiduously  to  enforce  obedience  to  the  canons,  and  when,  in  1215, 
he  summoned  the  whole  Christian  world  to  meet  in  the  fourth  council 
of  Lateran,  that  august  assembly  of  about  thirteen  hundred  prelates, 
acting  under  his  impulsion,  and  reflecting  his  triumph  over  John  of 
England  and  Otho  of  Germany,  spoke  with  an  authority  which  no 
former  body  since  that  of  Nicaea  had  possessed.  Its  canons  on  the 
subject  before  us  were  simple,  perhaps  less  violent  in  their  tone  than 
those  of  former  synods,  but  they  breathed  the  air  of  conscious 
strength,  and  there  was  no  man  that  dared  openly  to  gainsay  them. 
A  more  rigid  observance  of  the  rules  was  enjoined,  and  any  one 
officiating  while  suspended  for  contravention  was  punishable  with 
perpetual  degradation  and  deprivation  of  his  emoluments.  Yet  the 
rule  was  admitted  to  be  merely  a  local  ordinance  peculiar  to  the 
Latin  church,  for,  in  the  effort  made  by  the  council  to  heal  the 
schism  with  Constantinople,  the  right  of  the  East  to  permit  the 
marriage  of  its  priests  was  acknowledged  by  a  clause  visiting  with 
severer  penalties  those  who  by  custom  were  allowed  to  marry,  and 
who,  notwithstanding  this  license,  still  permitted  themselves  illicit 
indulgences.  The  disgraceful  traffic  by  which  in  some  places  pre¬ 
lates  regularly  sold  permissions  to  sin  was  denounced  in  the  strong¬ 
est  terms,  as  a  vice  equal  in  degree  to  that  which  it  encouraged; 
and  the  common  custom  of  fathers  obtaining  preferment  in  their 


1  Can.  7  Extra  Lib.  v.  Tit.  xxxviii. 


328 


GENERAL  LEGISLATION. 


own  churches  for  their  illegitimate  offspring  was  reprobated  as  it 
deserved.1 

There  is  nothing  novel  in  these  canons,  nor  can  they  in  strictness 
be  said  to  constitute  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  sacerdotal  celibacy. 
They  enunciate  no  new  principles,  they  threaten  no  new  punishments, 
yet  are  they  noteworthy  as  marking  the  settled  policy  of  the  church 
at  a  period  when  it  had  acquired  that  plenitude  of  power  and  vigor 
of  organization  which  insured  at  least  an  outward  show  of  obedience 
to  its  commands.  The  successive  labors  of  so  long  a  series  of  pon¬ 
tiffs,  during  more  than  a  century  and  .a  half,  carrying  with  them  the 
cumulative  authority  of  Rome,  had  gradually  broken  down  resistance, 
and  the  Lateran  canons  were  the  definitive  expression  of  its  discipline 
on  this  subject.  Accordingly,  though  we  shall  see  how  little  was 
accomplished  in  securing  the  purity  of  the  priesthood,  which  was  the 
ostensible  object  of  the  rule,  yet  hereafter  there  are  to  be  found  few 
traces  of  marriage  in  holy  orders,  except  in  the  distant  countries  to 
which  reference  has  already  been  made. 

Yet  the  readiness  to  relax  the  rule  when  a  substantial  advantage 
was  to  be  gained  still  continued,  and  when  the  effort,  commenced  at 
the  council  of  Lyons  in  1274,  to  reunite  the  Greek  church  under  the 
supremacy  of  the  Holy  See  was  apparently  successful,  Nicholas  III. 
stoutly  insisted  upon  the  addition  of  “ jilioque"  to  the  Symbol,  but 
was  discreetly  silent  as  to  separating  the  wives  of  priests  from  their 
husbands,  promising  in  general  terms  that  in  all  that  merely  con¬ 
cerned  ritual  observances  the  way  should  be  made  easy  for  them.2 

In  Southern  Italy,  wdien  the  churches  wrere  actually  brought 
together  under  the  domination  of  Rome,  priests  of  Greek  origin 


1  Ne  vero  facilitas  veniae  incentivum 
tribuat  delinquendi :  statuimus,  ut  qui 
deprehensi  fuerint  incontinentiae  vitio 
laborare,  prout  magis  aufc  minus  pecca- 
verint,  puniantur  secundum  canonicas 
sanctiones,  quas  efficacius  et  districtius 
praecipimus  observari,  ut  quos  divinus 
timor  a  malo  non  revocat,  temporalis 
saltern  poena  a  peccato  coliibeat. 

Si  quis  igitur  hac  de  causa  suspensus, 
divina  celebrare  praesumpserit,  non  so¬ 
lum  ecclesiasticis  beneficiis  spolietur, 
verum  etiam  pro  hac  duplici  culpa, 
perpetuo  deponatur. 

Praelati  vero  qui  tales  prsesumpserint 
in  suis  iniquitatibus  sustinere,  maxime 


obtentu  pecuniae  vel  alterius  commodi 
temporalis,  pari  subjaceant  ultioni. 

Qui  autem  secundum  regionis  suae 
morem  non  abdicarunt  copulam  con- 
jugalem,  si  lapsi  fuerint,  gravius  puni¬ 
antur,  cum  legitimo  matrimonio  possint 
uti. — Concil,  Lateranens.  IY.  can.  14. 

Ad  abolendam  pessiman,  quae  in 
plerisque  inolevit  ecclesiis,  corrupte- 
lam,  firmiter  prohibemus,  ne  canoni- 
corum  filii,  maxime  spurii,  canonici 
fiant  in  saecularibus  ecclesiis,  in  quibus 
instituti  suntpatres  etc. — Ibid.  can.  31. 

2  See  his  instructions  to  his  legates, 
cap.  xi.  (Martene  Ampl.  Collect.  VII. 
2G7-74). 


THE  GRJECO -LATIN  CHURCH. 


329 


were  allowed  to  retain  their  wives,  but  married  clerks  of  Latin 
parentage  were  not  permitted  to  enter  holy  orders  without  separation. 
It  not  infrequently  happened  that  the  latter  endeavored  to  elude  the 
prohibition  by  getting  themselves  ordained  in  the  Greek  church,  and 
it  became  necessary  to  denounce  severe  penalties  not  only  against 
them,  but  against  the  prelates  who  permitted  it.1 


1  Concil.  Melfitan.  ann.  1284  c.  iii.  (Ibid.  p.  284). 


XXI. 


RESULTS. 


The  unrelaxing  efforts  of  two  centuries  had  at  length  achieved  an 
inevitable  triumph.  One  by  one  the  different  churches  of  Latin 
Christendom  yielded  to  the  fiat  of  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  and 
their  ecclesiastics  were  forced  to  forego  the  privilege  of  assuming 
the  most  sacred  of  earthly  ties  with  the  sanction  of  heaven  and  the 
approbation  of  man.  Sacerdotalism  vindicated  its  claim  to  exclusive 
obedience ;  the  church  successfully  asserted  its  right  to  command 
the  entire  life  of  its  members,  and  to  sunder  all  the  bonds  that  might 
allure  them  to  render  a  divided  allegiance.  In  theory,  at  least,  all 
who  professed  a  religious  life  or  assumed  the  sacred  ministry  were 
given  up  wholly  to  the  awful  service  which  they  had  undertaken: 
no  selfishly  personal  aspirations  could  divert  their  energies  from  the 
aggrandizement  of  their  class,  nor  were  the  temporal  possessions  of 
the  establishment  to  be  exposed  to  the  minute  but  all-pervading 
dilapidation  of  the  wife  and  family. 

If  these  were  the  objects  of  the  movement  inaugurated  by  Damiani 
and  Hildebrand,  and  followed  up  with  such  unrelenting  vigor  by 
Calixtus  and  Alexander  and  Innocent,  the  history  of  the  mediaeval 
church  attests  how  fully  they  were  attained.  It  is  somewhat  in¬ 
structive,  indeed,  to  observe  that  in  the  rise  of  the  papal  power  to  its 
culmination  under  Innocent  III.  it  was  precisely  the  pontiffs  most 
conspicuous  for  their  enforcement  of  the  rule  of  celibacy  who  were 
likewise  most  prominent  in  their  assertion  of  the  supremacy,  tem¬ 
poral  and  spiritual,  of  the  head  of  the  Roman  church.  Whether  or 
not  they  recognized  and  acknowledged  the  connection,  they  labored 
as  though  the  end  in  view  was  clearly  appreciated,  and  their  triumphs 
on  the  one  field  were  sure  to  be  followed  by  corresponding  successes 
on  the  other. 

Yet  in  all  this  the  ostensible  object  was  always  represented  to  be 


DANGERS  UNHEEDED. 


331 


the  purity  of  the  church  and  of  its  ministers.  The  other  advantages 
were  either  systematically  ignored  or  but  casually  alluded  to.  One 
warning  voice,  indeed,  was  raised,  in  a  quarter  where  it  would  have 
at  least  commanded  respectful  attention,  had  not  the  church  appeared 
to  imagine  itself  superior  to  the  ordinary  laws  of  cause  and  effect. 
While  Innocent  II.  was  laboring  to  enforce  his  new  doctrine  that 
ordination  and  religious  vows  were  destructive  of  marriage,  St. 
Bernard,  the  ascetic  reformer  of  monachism  and  the  foremost  eccle¬ 
siastic  of  his  day,  was  thundering  against  the  revival  of  Manichseism. 
The  heresies  of  the  Albigenses  respecting  marriage  were  to  be  com¬ 
bated,  and,  in  performing  this  duty,  he  pointed  out  with  startling 
vigor  the  evils  to  the  church  and  to  mankind  of  the  attempt  to  enforce 
a  purity  incompatible  with  human  nature.  Deprive  the  church  of 
honorable  marriage,  he  exclaimed,  and  you  fill  her  with  concubinage, 
incest,  and  all  manner  of  nameless  vice  and  uncleanness.1  It  was 
still  an  age  of  faith ;  and  while  earnest  men  like  St.  Bernard  could 
readily  anticipate  the  evils  attendant  upon  the  asceticism  of  heretics, 
they  could  yet  persuade  themselves,  as  the  Council  of  Trent  subse¬ 
quently  expressed  it,  that  God  would  not  deny  the  gift  of  chastity  to 
those  who  rightly  sought  it  in  the  bosom  of  the  true  church — though 
St.  Bernard  himself  confessed  that  crimes  which  he  dared  not  even 
to  name  commonly  followed  after  the  fornication,  adultery,  and  incest 
which  specially  characterized  innumerable  ministers  of  Christ.2  It 
remains  for  us  to  see  what  was  the  success  of  the  attempt  thus 
deliberately  to  tempt  the  Lord. 

It  is  somewhat  significant  that  when,  in  France,  the  rule  of  celibacy 
was  completely  restored,  strict  churchmen  should  have  found  it  neces¬ 
sary  also  to  revive  the  hideously  suggestive  restriction  which  denied 
to  the  priest  the  society  of  his  mother  or  of  his  sister.  Even  in  the 
profoundest  barbarism  of  the  tenth  century,  or  the  unbridled  license 
of  the  eleventh  ;  even  when  Damiani  descanted  upon  the  disorders  of 
his  contemporaries  with  all  the  cynicism  of  the  most  exalted  asceticism, 
horrors  such  as  these  are  not  alluded  to.  It  is  reserved  for  the  ad¬ 
vancement  of  the  thirteenth  century  and  the  enforcement  of  celibacy 
to  show  us  how  outraged  human  nature  may  revenge  itself  and  protest 


1  Tolle  de  ecclesia  honorabile  connu- 
bium  et  torum  immaculatum ;  nonne 
reples  earn  concubinariis,  incestuosis, 
seminifluis,  mollibus,  masculorum  con- 
cubitoribus  et  omni  denique  genere  im- 
mundorum? — Bernardi  Serm.  lxvi.  in 


Cantic.  §  3. — This  series  is  understood 
to  have  been  written  in  1135. 

2  Bernardi  Serm.  de  Conversion e 
cap.  xx. 


832 


RESULTS. 


against  the  shackles  imposed  by  zealous  sacerdotalism  or  unreasoning 
bigotry.  In  1208,  Cardinal  Guala,  Innocent’s  legate  in  France, 
issued  an  order  in  which  he  not  only  repeated  the  threadbare  pro¬ 
hibitions  respecting  focarim  and  concubines,  but  commanded  that 
even  mothers  and  other  relatives  should  not  be  allowed  to  reside 
with  men  in  holy  orders,  the  devil  being  the  convenient  personage  on 
whom,  as  usual,  was  thrown  the  responsibility  of  the  scandals  which 
were  known  to  occur  frequently  under  such  circumstances.1  That 
this  decree  was  not  allowed  to  pass  into  speedy  oblivion  is  shown  by  a 
reference  to  it  as  still  well  known  and  in  force  a  century  later,  in  the 
statutes  of  the  church  of  Treguier.2  And  that  the  necessity  for  it 
was  not  evanescent  may  be  assumed  from  its  repetition  in  the  regu¬ 
lations  of  the  see  of  Nismes,  the  date  of  which  is  uncertain,  but 
probably  attributable  to  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century.3  At  the 
same  time,  we  have  evidence  that  Cardinal  Guala’s  efforts  were  pro¬ 
ductive  of  little  effect.  Four  years  later,  in  1212,  we  find  Innocent 
formally  authorizing  the  prelates  of  France  mercifully  to  pardon 
those  who  had  been  excommunicated  under  Guala’s  rules,  wTith  the 
suggestive  proviso  that  the  power  thus  conferred  was  not  to  be  used 
for  the  purpose  of  extorting  unhallowed  gains.4  Still  more  significant 
is  the  fact  that  in  the  same  year  Innocent  dispatched  another  legate, 
Cardinal  Robert,  duly  commissioned  to  renew  the  endless  task  of 
purifying  the  Gallican  church.  Guala’s  efforts  would  seem  to  have 
already  passed  into  oblivion,  for  in  a  council  which  Cardinal  Robert 
held  in  Paris,  he  gravely  promulgated  a  canon  forbidding  the  priest¬ 
hood  from  keeping  their  concubines  so  openly  as  to  give  rise  to 
scandal,  and  threatening  the  recalcitrants  with  excommunication  if 
they  should  persist  in  retaining  their  improper  consorts  for  forty 
days  after  receiving  notice.5  That  monachism  was  no  less  productive 
of  sin  in  the  depraved  moral  atmosphere  of  the  age  is  rendered 
evident  by  other  canons  of  the  same  council,  which  prohibit  both 
monks  and  nuns  from  sleeping  two  in  a  bed,  with  the  avowed  object 


1  Constit.  Gallonis  cap.  (Harduin.  I. 
T.  VI.  P.  ii.  p.  1975). — Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis,  a  few  years  earlier,  makes  the 
same  assertion  (Gemma.  Eccles.  Dist. 
ii.  cap.  xv.). 

2  Statut.  Eccles.  Trecorens.  c.  32 
(Martene  Thesaur.  IV.  1102).  Cf. 


Synod.  Andegavens.  ann.  1312  cap.  1. 
(D’Achery  I.  742). 

3  Statut.  Eccles.  Nemausens.  Tit.  vn. 
c.  5  (Martene  Thesaur.  IV.  1044). 

4  Innocent.  PP.  III.  Regest.  Lib. 
xv.  Epist.  113. 

5  Concil.  Parisiens.  ann.  1212  can. 
4  (Harduin.  T.  VI.  P.  ii.  p.  2001). 


FRUITLESS  EFFORTS. 


333 


of  repressing  crimes  against  nature.1  It  may  well  be  asked  wbat 
was  the  value  of  the  continence  aimed  at  in  monastic  vows  when  the 
whole  body  of  the  monastic  orders  was  the  subject  of  such  degrading 
regulations  as  these. 

.  The  clergy  of  France  were  not  exceptional,  and,  unfortunately, 
there  can  be  no  denial  of  the  fact  that  notorious  and  undisguised 
illicit  unions,  or  still  more  debasing  secret  licentiousness,  was  a  uni¬ 
versal  and  pervading  vice  of  the  church  throughout  Christendom. 
Its  traces  amid  all  the  ecclesiastical  legislation  of  the  thirteenth, 
fourteenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries  are  too  broad  and  deep  to  be 
called  into  question,  and  if  no  evidence  remained  except  the  constant 
and  unavailing  efforts  to  repress  it,  that  alone  would  be  sufficient. 
National  and  local  synods,  pastoral  epistles,  statutes  of  churches,  all 
the  records  of  ecclesiastical  discipline  are  full  of  it.  Now  deploring 
and  now  threatening,  exhausting  ingenuity  in  devising  new  regula¬ 
tions  and  more  effective  punishments,  the  prelates  of  those  ages  found 
themselves  involved  in  a  task  as  endless  and  as  bootless  as  that  of 
the  Danaidm.  Occasionally,  indeed,  it  is  lost  sight  of  momentarily, 
when  the  exactions  and  usurpations  of  the  laity,  or  the  gradual 
extension  of  secular  jurisdiction  monopolized  the  attention  of  those 
who  were  bound  to  defend  the  privileges  of  their  class ;  but,  with 
these  rare  exceptions,  it  may  be  asserted  as  a  general  truth  that 
scarcely  a  synod  met,  or  a  body  of  laws  was  drawn  up  to  govern 
some  local  church,  in  which  the  subject  did  not  receive  a  prominent 
position  and  careful  consideration.  It  would  be  wearisome  and  un¬ 
profitable  to  recapitulate  here  the  details  of  this  fruitless  iteration. 
Without  by  any  means  exhausting  the  almost  limitless  materials  for 
investigation,  I  have  collected  a  formidable  mass  of  references  upon 
the  subject,  but  an  examination  of  them  shows  so  little  of  novelty 
and  so  constant  a  recurrence  to  the  starting-point,  that  no  new  prin¬ 
ciples  can  be  evolved  from  them,  and  their  only  interest  lies  in  their 
universality,  and  in  demonstrating  how  resultless  was  the  unceasing 
effort  to  remove  the  uneffaceable  plague-spot. 

Spasmodic  efforts,  it  is  true,  occasionally  wrought  a  temporary  im¬ 
provement,  as  when  Alexander  IV.,  in  1259,  proclaimed  to  the  world 
that  licentious  ecclesiastics  were  the  cause  of  all  the  evils  under 
which  the  church  was  groaning,  for  through  them  the  name  of  God 
was  blasphemed  throughout  the  world,  the  sacraments  were  polluted, 


1  Ibid.  P.  ii.  c.  21,  P.  hi.  c.  2  (Harduin.  VI.  ii.  2009,  2011). 


334 


RESULTS. 


the  Catholic  religion  lost  the  reverence  of  the  faithful,  the  people 
were  deprived  of  the  benefits  of  divine  service,  the  substance  of  the 
church  was  dissipated,  the  Word  of  God  was  defiled  by  their  impure 
lips,  heretics  were  encouraged  in  their  opposition,  oppressors  were 
emboldened  to  persecution,  and  the  sacrilegious  were  able  to  expose 
the  whole  church  to  mockery  and  contempt.  To  alleviate  these 
troubles,  he  not  only  ordered  the  prelates  of  Christendom  to  prose¬ 
cute  all  offences  of  this  nature  with  the  utmost  severity,  but,  recog¬ 
nizing  his  own  court  as  an  obstacle  to  reform,  he  surrendered  his 
appellate  jurisdiction  in  such  cases,  and  forbade  all  appeals  to  Rome.1 
His  earnestness  bore  some  fruit,  and  many  prelates  were  stimulated 
to  reform  their  flocks,  causing  large  numbers  of  ecclesiastics  to  be 
expelled.  A  contemporary  rhymester,  Adam  de  la  Halle  (better 
known  perhaps  as  Le  Bossu  d’Arras),  thus  alludes  to  the  effects  of 
the  Bull : — 

“  Et  chascuns  le  pape  encosa 
Quant  tant  de  bons  clers  desposa. — 

— Romme  a  bien  le  tierche  partie 
Des  clers  fais  sers  et  amatis.”2 

As  in  all  similar  attempts,  however,  the  results  were  but  transitory. 
Ferry,  Bishop  of  Orleans,  would  scarce  have  been  murdered,  in 
1299,  by  a  knight  whose  daughter  he  had  seduced,  had  the  father 
felt  that  there  was  any  chance  of  punishing  the  criminal  by  having 
the  canons  enforced  against  him.3 

In  the  confessed  nullity  of  penal  legislation  it  was  natural  for  the 
church  to  have  recourse  to  her  supernatural  armory,  and  accordingly 
we  have  ample  store  of  legends  framed  with  the  hope  of  frightening 
by  spiritual  terrors  those  who  were  indurated  to  canon  and  decretal. 
The  dead  concubine  of  a  priest  was  seen  chased  by  infernal  demons, 
and  a  knight  who  sought  to  protect  her  had  a  handful  of  hair  left  in 
his  grasp  by  her  mad  terror ;  and  the  reality  of  the  awful  scene  was 
verified  on  opening  her  tomb  and  finding  her  tresses  deficient.  So 
a  nun  who  had  yielded  to  temptation  and  had  sought  to  conceal  her 
frailty  by  murdering  her  child,  dying  unconfessed,  was  seen  wander¬ 
ing  hopelessly  with  a  burning  infant  clasped  to  her  bosom,  which  she 
proclaimed  was  to  be  her  torment  throughout  eternity.4  It  is  no 


1  Chron.  Augustens.  ann.  1260  (Fre- 
her.  et  Struv.  I.  546-7). 

2  Michel,  Theat.  Franj.  au  Moyen 

Age,  p.  23. 


3  Guillel.  de  Nangis  ann.  1299. 

4  Ccesar.  Heisterbach.  Dial.  Mirac. 
Dist.  xii.  c.  xx.  xxi. 


CHILDREN  OF  ECCLESIASTICS. 


335 


wonder  that  the  well-meant  ingenuity  which  devised  these  tales  met 
with  slender  reward,  and  that  the  threat  of  post-mortem  punishment 
was  as  powerless  as  that  of  temporal  penalties,  for  these  tales  were 
counterbalanced  by  other  superstitions,  such  as  that  which  taught 
that  the  most  sinful,  even  among  laymen,  could  obtain  eternal  salva¬ 
tion  by  the  simple  expedient  of  enveloping  himself  in  a  monastic 
habit  on  his  death-bed.  The  Benedictines  had  well-authenticated 
cases  in  plenty  where  the  most  vicious  of  men,  by  adopting  this 
plan,  were  rescued  by  St.  Benedict  himself  from  the  hands  of 
demons  conducting  them  to  eternal  punishment,  in  spite  of  Satan’s 
complaints  that  he  was  defrauded  of  his  rights.1  The  Franciscans 
contended  with  the  Benedictines  as  to  the  efficacy  of  their  respective 
patrons,  and  related  with  pride  that  St.  Francis  visited  purgatory 
every  year  and  carried  with  him  to  heaven  the  souls  of  his  followers 
— a  general  plan  of  salvation  which  gave  his  vestments  a  decided 
superiority  over  those  of  the  older  order.  As  the  practice  became 
more  common,  it  was  recognized  as  equally  dangerous  to  the  welfare 
of  the  faithful  and  to  the  revenues  of  the  church,  and  was  condemned 
as  a  pernicious  error.2 

So  open  and  avowed  was  the  shame  of  the  church  that  the 
Neapolitan  code,  promulgated  about  1231  by  the  enlightened  Frederic 
II.,  absolutely  interfered  to  give  a  quasi  legitimacy  to  the  children 
of  ecclesiastics,  and  removed,  to  a  certain  extent,  their  disability  of 
inheritance.  The  imperial  officials  w^ere  ordered  to  assign  appro¬ 
priate  shares  in  parental  estates  to  such  children,  notwithstanding 
their  illegitimacy,  conditioned  on  the  payment  of  an  annual  tax  to 
the  imperial  court ;  and  parents  were  not  allowed  to  alienate  their 
property  to  the  prejudice  of  such  children,  any  more  than  in  cases 
of  the  offspring  of  lawful  wedlock.3  The  numbers  and  influence  of 
the  class  thus  protected  must  indeed  have  been  great  to  induce  such 
interference  in  their  favor. 


1  Chron.  Casinens.  Lib.  in.  cap. 
xxxix. 

2  Concil.  Hammaburg.  ann.  1406 
(Hartzheim  YI.  2). 

3  Constit*  Sicular.  Lib.  in.  Tit.  25 
c.  1. 

It  is  possible  that  Frederick’s  legis¬ 
lation  may  have  attracted  attention 


to  the  irregularities  of  the  Neapolitan 
church,  for  in  1230  Gregory  IX.  ad¬ 
dressed  an  encyclical  letter  to  the 
prelates  of  that  kingdom  “  praesertim 
super  cohabitatione  mulierum;”  and 
two  years  later  he  deemed  it  neces¬ 
sary  to  repeat  his  admonitions.  — 
Raynaldi  Annal.  ann.  1230  No.  20. 


336 


RESULTS. 


We  have  already  seen  ecclesiastical  authority  for  the  assertion 
that  in  the  Spanish  Peninsula  the  children  sprung  from  such  illicit 
connections  rivalled  in  numbers  the  offspring  of  the  laity.  That  they 
were  numerous  elsewhere  may  be  presumed  when  we  see  Innocent 
IV.,  in  1248,  forced  to  grant  to  the  province  of  Livonia  the  privilege 
of  having  them  eligible  to  holy  orders,  except  when  born  of  parents 
involved  in  monastic  vows,1  for  necessity  alone  could  excuse  so  fla¬ 
grant  a  departure  from  the  canons  enunciated  during  the  preceding 
two  centuries.  A  similar  conclusion  is  deducible  from  the  fact  that 
in  the  municipal  code  in  force  throughout  Northern  Germany  during 
the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries,  they  were  deemed  of  sufficient 
importance  to  be  entitled  to  a  separate  place  in  the  classification  of 
wer-gilds,  or  blood-moneys ;  while  the  aim  of  the  lawgiver  to  stigma¬ 
tize  them  is  manifested  by  his  placing  them  below  the  peasant,  deem¬ 
ing  them  superior  only  to  the  juggler;2  and  that  this  was  not  a 
provision  of  transient  force  is  clear  from  the  commentary  upon  it  in 
a  body  of  law  dating  from  the  end  of  the  fourteenth  century.3  Nor 
is  the  evidence  less  convincing  which  may  be  drawn  from  the  use  of 
the  old  German  word  pfaffenlrind ,  or  priest’s  son,  which  became  gen¬ 
erally  used  as  equivalent  to  bastard.4  It  would  not,  indeed,  be  diffi¬ 
cult  to  understand  the  numbers  of  this  class  of  the  population  if 
ecclesiastics  in  general  followed  the  example  of  Henry  III.,  Bishop 
of  Liege,  whose  natural  children  amounted  to  no  less  than  sixty-five.5 


1  Baluz.  et  Mansi  I.  211. 

2  Specul.  Saxon.  Lib.  in.  art.  45. 

3  Richstich  Landrecht,  Lib.  n.  c.  25. 

*  Michelet,  Origines  des  Loix,  p.  68. 
This  popular  phrase  gives  point  to  the 
story  told  by  Henri  Estienne  of  a  Ger¬ 
man  ambassador  to  Rome,  to  whom,  on 
his  farewell  audience,  the  pope  gave  a 
message  to  his  master,  commencing, 
“Tell  our  well-beloved  son”  —  The 
honest  Teuton  could  not  contain  him¬ 
self  at  what  he  took  to  be  a  flagrant 
insult,  and  he  interrupted  the  diplo¬ 
matic  courtesies  with  an  angry  excla¬ 
mation  that  his  noble  master  was  not 
the  son  of  a  priest. — Apol.  pour  Hero- 
dote,  Liv.  i.  chap.  iii. 

5  This  admirable  prelate,  after  enjoy¬ 
ing  the  episcopate  for  twenty-seven 
years,  was  at  length  deposed  in  1274  by 
Gregory  X.,  at  the  council  of  Lyons, 
in  consequence  of  his  excesses  “  prce- 


sertem  de  deflorationibus  virginum, 
stupris  matronarum  et  incestibus  moni- 
alium”  (Chron.  Cornel.  Zanfliet,  ann. 
1272).  For  some  details  of  his  excesses, 
see  the  epistle  addressed  to  him  by 
Gregory  X.  in  Hardouin,  Concil.  T. 
VII.  p.  665.  As  Gregory  had  been 
archdeacon  of  Liege,  he  was  probably 
familiar  with  the  subject.  Henry’s 
promotion  to  the  see  of  Liege  was  part 
of  the  policy  of  Innocent  IV.  in  ele¬ 
vating  William  of  Holland,  his  brother, 
to  the  imperial  throne  as  a  competitor 
to  Frederic  II.  By  special  dispensation 
Henry  had  enjoyed  the  see  for  ten  years 
before  he  was  ordained  to  the  priest¬ 
hood,  and  after  his  degradation  he  in¬ 
fested  the  bishopric  for  twelve  years, 
until  his  death,  one  of  his  exploits  being 
the  killing  of  his  successor,  John  of 
Enghien. — Hist.  Monast.  S.  Laurent. 
Leodiens.  Lib.  v.  c.  69  (Martene  Ampl. 
Collect.  IV.  1105). 


CHILDREN  OF  ECCLESIASTICS. 


337 


The  direct  encouragement  thus  given  to  illicit  connections,  by  pro¬ 
viding  for  the  children  sprung  from  them,  neutralized  one  of  the 
principal  modes  by  which  the  church  endeavored  to  suppress  them. 
The  innumerable  canons  issued  during  this  period,  forbidding  and 
pronouncing  null  and  void  all  testamentary  provisions  in  favor  of 
concubines  and  descendants,  prove  not  only  how  much  stress  was 
laid  upon  this  as  an  efficient  means  of  repression,  but  also  how  little 
endeavor  was  made  by  the  guilty  parties  to  conceal  their  sin.  As 
all  testaments  came  within  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  it 
would  seem  that  there  should  have  been  no  difficulty  in  enforcing 
regulations  of  this  kind,  yet  their  constant  repetition  proves  either 
that  those  who  were  intrusted  with  their  execution  were  habitually 
remiss,  or  else  that  the  popular  feelings  were  in  favor  of  the  unfortu¬ 
nates,  and  interfered  with  the  efficacy  of  the  laws. 

A  single  instance,  out  of  many  that  might  be  cited,  will  illustrate 
this.  In  1225  the  Cardinal-legate  Conrad  held,  at  Mainz,  a  national 
council  of  the  German  empire,  of  which  one  of  the  canons  declared 
that,  in  order  to  abolish  the  custom  of  ecclesiastics  leaving  to  their 
concubines  and  children  the  fruits  of  their  benefices,  not  only  should 
such  legacies  be  void,  but  those  guilty  of  the  attempt  should  lie 
unburied,  all  who  endeavored  to  enforce  such  testaments  should  be 
anathematized,  and  the  church  where  it  was  permitted  should  lie 
under  an  interdict  as  long  as  the  wrong  was  permitted.1  The  terrible 
rigor  of  these  provisions  shows  how  deep  seated  was  the  evil  aimed 
at;  nor  were  they  uncalled  for  when  we  see  a  will,  executed  in  1218 
by  no  less  a  personage  than  Gotfrid,  Archdeacon  of  Wurzburg,  in 
which  he  leaves  legacies  to  the  children  whom  he  confesses  to  have 
been  born  in  sin,  and  of  whom  he  expects  his  relatives  to  take  charge.2 
Had  any  earnest  attempt  been  made  to  enforce  the  canons  of  the 
Legate,  they  would  have  been  amply  sufficient  to  eradicate  the  evil; 
yet  their  utter  inefficiency  is  demonstrated  by  the  council  of  Fritzlar 
in  1246,  and  that  of  Cologne  in  1260.  The  former  of  these  was 
held  by  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz ;  it  has  no  canons  directed  against 
concubinage,  which  was  as  public  as  ever,  but  it  deplores  the  dilapi¬ 
dation  of  the  temporalities  of  the  church  by  the  testamentary  pro- 


1  Concil.  German,  ann.  1225  c.  5 
(Hartzheim  III.  521).  This  council 
was  assembled  to  check  the  prevalent 
vices  of  concubinage  and  simony,  and 


its  elaborate  provisions  show  how  fruit¬ 
less  previous  efforts  had  been. 

2  Gudeni  Cod.  Diplom.  II.  30. — Not 
a  few  testaments  of  this  kind  are  pre¬ 
served. 


22 


338 


RESULTS. 


visions  of  priests  in  favor  of  their  guilty  partners  and  children,  and 
it  repeats,  with  additional  emphasis,  the  regulations  of  1225.1  The 
latter  renews  the  complaint  that  priests  not  only  continue  their  evil 
courses  throughout  life,  but  are  not  ashamed,  on  their  death-beds, 
to  leave  to  their  children  the  patrimony  of  Christ ;  and  another  pro¬ 
vision  is  equally  significant  in  forbidding  priests  to  be  present  at  the 
marriages  of  their  children,  or  that  such  marriages  should  be  sol¬ 
emnized  with  pomp  and  ostentation.2  The  following  year  another 
council,  held  at  Mainz,  repeated  the  prohibition  as  to  the  diversion 
of  church  property  to  the  consorts  and  natural  children  of  priests  ;3 
while  that  regarding  the  solemnization  of  their  children’s  marriages 
was  renewed  by  the  synod  of  Olmutz  in  1342.4  In  1416  the  synod 
of  Breslau  deplored  that  the  old  canons  were  forgotten  and  despised, 
and  that  priests  were  not  ashamed  to  bequeath  to  their  bastards  accu¬ 
mulations  of  property  which  would  form  fit  portions  for  lofty  nobles.5 
How  thoroughly  in  fact  it  was  deemed  a  matter  of  course  for  the 
children  of  ecclesiastics  to  marry  well  and  to  have  good  dowries,  is 
to  be  seen  in  Chaucer’s  description  of  the  wife  of  “deinous  Simekin”, 
the  proud  miller  of  Trompington : — 

“  A  wif  he  hadde,  comen  of  noble  kin  ; 

The  person  of  the  toun  hire  father  was. 

With  hire  he  yaf  ful  many  a  panne  of  bras, 

For  that  Simkin  shuld  in  his  blood  allie. 

She  was  yfostered  in  a  nonnerie.”  (The  Reves  Tale.) 

As  time  wore  on,  and  the  clergy,  despite  the  innumerable  admo¬ 
nitions  and  threats  which  were  everywhere  showered  upon  them, 
persisted  in  retaining  their  female  companions,  they  appear,  in  some 
places,  to  have  gradually  assumed  the  privilege  as  a  matter  of  right ; 
and,  what  is  even  more  remarkable,  they  seem  to  have  had  a  certain 
measure  of  success  in  the  assumption.  In  1284  the  Papal  Legate, 


1  Concil.  Fritzlar.  ann.  1246  can.  xi. 

(Hartzheim  III.  574). 

3  Concil.  Coloniens.  ann.  1260  c.  1. 

3  Concil.  Mogunt.  ann.  1261  can. 
xxvii.  xxxix.  (Ilartzheim  III.  604, 
607).  The  latter  canon  is  very  pro¬ 
lix  and  earnest,  and  inveighs  strongly 
against  the  “  cullagium,”  or  payment 
exacted  by  archdeacons  and  cleans  for 
permitting  irregularities.  The  author¬ 
ities  apparently  grew  gradually  tired 

of  attempting  the  impossible.  In  1284 
the  council  of  Passau,  in  a  series  of 


long  and  elaborate  canons,  contented 
itself  with  a  vague  threat  of  prosecuting 
priests  who  publicly  kept  concubines, 
and  with  prohibiting  them  from  osten¬ 
tatiously  celebrating  the  marriage  of 
their  children. — Concil.  Patav.  ann. 
1284  can.  ix.  xxxi.  (Ibid.  pp.  675, 
679). 

4  Synod.  Olomucens.  ann.  1342  cap. 
viii.  (Hartzheim  IV.  338). 

5  Synod.  Wratislav.  ann.  1416  \  1 
(Hartzheim  V.  153). 


CONCUBINAGE  RECOGNIZED. 


330 


Gerard  Bishop  of  Sabina,  at  the  Council  of  Amalfi,  renewed  and 
strengthened  the  decretals  of  Alexander  III.  respecting  the  concubi- 
nary  priests  of  the  Neapolitan  provinces,  ordering  the  ejection  of  all 
who  should  not  separate  from  their  partners  within  a  month,  sus¬ 
pending  all  prelates  who  should  neglect  to  enforce  the  rule,  and  fining 
heavily  those  who,  as  in  so  many  other  places,  made  the  frailties  of 
their  subordinates  a  source  of  filthy  gain.1  The  severity  of  these 
provisions  was  as  unsuccessful  as  usual,  and  at  length  the  secular 
power  endeavored  to  come  to  the  assistance  of  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities.  The  pious  Charles  the  Lame  of  Naples,  whose  close 
alliance  with  Borne  rendered  him  eager  in  everything  that  would 
gratify  the  head  of  the  church,  about  the  year  1300  imposed  a  heavy 
fine  on  the  concubines  of  priests  if  they  persisted  in  their  sin  for  a 
year  after  excommunication.  This  law,  like  so  many  similar  ones, 
soon  fell  into  desuetude,  but  in  1317,  under  his  son  Bobert  the 
Good,  the  justiciary  of  the  Principato  Citra  undertook  to  put  it  into 
execution.  In  the  diocese  of  Marsico  the  clergy  openly  resisted 
these  proceedings,  boldly  laid  their  complaints  before  the  king,  and 
were  so  energetic  that  Bobert  was  obliged  to  issue  an  ordinance 
directing  the  discontinuance  of  all  processes  before  the  lay  tribunals, 
and  granting  that  the  concubines  should  he  left  to  the  care  of  the 
ecclesiastical  courts  alone.  These  women  thus,  by  reason  of  their 
sinful  courses,  came  to  be  invested  with  a  quasi-ecclesiastical  charac¬ 
ter,  and  to  enjoy  the  dearly  prized  immunities  attached  to  that  posi¬ 
tion,  at  a  time  when  the  church  was  vigorously  striving  to  uphold 
and  extend  the  privileges  which  the  civil  lawyers  were  systematically 
laboring  to  undermine.  Nor  was  the  pretension  thus  advanced  suf¬ 
fered  to  lapse.  Towards  the  close  of  the  same  century,  Carlo  Mala- 
testa  of  Bimini  applied  to  Ancarono,  a  celebrated  doctor  of  canon 
and  civil  law  (“ juris  canonici  speculum  et  civilis  anchora”),  to  know 
whether  he  could  impose  penalties  on  the  concubines  of  priests,  and 
the  learned  jurist  replied  decidedly  in  the  negative;  while  other 
legal  authorities  have  not  hesitated  to  state  that  such  women  are 
fully  entitled  to  immunity  from  secular  jurisdiction,  as  belonging  to 
the  families  of  clerks — de  familia  clericorum.2  When  a  premium 
was  thus  offered  for  sin,  and  the  mistresses  of  priests — like  the 


1  Concil.  Melfitan.  ann.  1284  c.  v. 
(Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VII.  285-6). 

5  Giannone,  Apologia  cap.  xiv. — 
Ancarono  gave  his  name  to  one  of  the 


most  celebrated  colleges  of  law  in  Bo¬ 
logna. — Bruni  Vita  Gabrielis  Palseoti 
c.  4  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VI.  1390). 


340 


RESULTS. 


maitresses-en-titre  of  the  Bourbons — acquired  a  certain  honorable 
position  among  their  fellows  from  the  mere  fact  of  their  ministering 
to  the  unhallowed  lusts  of  their  pastors,  it  is  not  to  be  wTondered  at 
if  such  connections  multiplied  and  flourished,  and  if  the  humble  laity 
came  to  regard  them  as  an  established  institution. 

Robert  of  Naples  w^as  not  the  only  potentate  wTho  found  an  orga¬ 
nized  resistance  to  his  well-meant  endeavors  to  restore  discipline. 
When,  in  1410,  the  stout  William,  Bishop-elect  of  Paderborn,  had 
triumphed  with  fire  and  sword  over  his  powerful  foes,  the  Archbishop 
of  Cologne  and  the  Count  of  Cleves,  he  turned  his  energies  to  the 
reformation  of  the  dissolute  morals  of  his  monks.  They  positively 
refused  to  submit  to  the  ejection  of  their  women  from  the  monasteries, 
and  he  at  length  found  the  task  too  impracticable  even  for  his  war¬ 
like  temper.  For  seven  long  years  the  quarrel  lasted,  legal  proceed¬ 
ings  being  varied  by  attempts  at  poison  on  the  one  side,  and  reckless 
devastations  by  the  episcopal  troops  on  the  other,  until  the  prelate, 
worn  out  by  the  stubbornness  of  his  flock,  was  obliged  to  give  way.1 

Equal  success  wraited  on  the  resistance  of  the  Swiss  clergy  when, 
in  1230,  the  civil  authorities  of  Zurich  sacrilegiously  ordered  them 
to  dismiss  their  wromen.  They  resolutely  replied  that  they  wrere 
flesh  and  blood,  unequal  to  the  task  of  living  like  angels,  and  unable 
to  attend  to  the  kitchen  and  other  household  duties.  The  townsmen 
entered  into  a  league  against  them,  and  succeeded  in  driving  away 
some  of  the  sacerdotal  consorts,  when  the  Bishop  of  Constance  and 
his  chapter,  allowing  perhaps  the  pride  of  the  churchman  to  get  the 


1  Gobelin®  Person®  Cosmodrom. 
iEtat.  vi.  c.  92,  93. — How  utterly  mo¬ 
nastic  discipline  was  neglected  in 
Germany  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  a 
century  earlier,  in  1307,  a  council  of 
Cologne  found  it  necessary  to  denounce 
the  frequency  with  which  nuns  were 
seduced,  left  their  convents,  lived  in 
open  and  public  profligacy,  and  then 
returned  unblushingly  to  their  estab¬ 
lishments,  where  they  seem  to  have 
been  received  as  a  matter  of  course. 
— Concil.  Colon,  ann.  1307  c.  xvii. 
(Hartzheim  IV.  113).  That  this  had 
little  effect  is  proved  by  a  repetition 
of  the  threats  of  punishment,  three 
years  later  (Concil.  Colon,  ann.  1310 
c.  ix. ;  Hartzheim  IV.  122).  In  1347, 
John  van  Arckel,  Bishop  of  Utrecht, 
was  obliged  to  prohibit  men  from  hav¬ 
ing  access  to  the  nunneries  of  his  dio¬ 


cese,  in  order  to  put  an  end  to  the 
scandals  which  were  apparently  fre¬ 
quent  (Hartzheim  IV.  350).  In  1350, 
the  Emperor  Charles  IY.  felt  called 
upon  to  address  an  earnest  remon¬ 
strance  to  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz 
concerning  the  unclerical  habits  of 
his  canons  and  clergy  who  spent  the 
revenues  of  the  church  in  jousts  and 
tourneys,  and  who,  in  dress,  arms, 
and  mode  of  life,  were  not  to  be  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  laymen  (Ibid.  IV. 
358).  How  little  was  effected  by 
these  efforts  is  manifest  when,  in  13G0, 
William,  Archbishop  of  Cologne,  was 
obliged  to  refute  the  assertions  of  those 
monks  and  nuns  who  alleged  in  their 
defence  that  custom  allowed  them  to 
leave  their  convents  and  contract  mar¬ 
riage  (Ibid.  IV.  493). 


MORALS  OF  ROME. 


341 


better  of  ascetic  zeal,  interfered  with  a  threat  of  excommunication  on 
all  who  should  presume  to  intervene  in  a  matter  which  related 
specially  to  the  church.  He  absolved  the  leaguers  from  the  oaths 
with  which  they  were  mutually  bound,  and  thus  restored  security  to 
the  priestly  households.  About  the  same  time  Gregory  IX.  appointed 
a  certain  Boniface  to  the  see  of  Lausanne.  On  his  installation,  the 
new  bishop  commenced  with  ardor  to  enforce  the  canons,  but  the 
clergy  conspired  against  his  life,  and  were  so  nearly  successful  that 
he  incontinently  fled,  and  never  ventured  to  return.1 

If  the  irregular  though  permanent  connections  which  everywhere 
prevailed  had  been  the  only  result  of  the  prohibition  of  marriage, 
there  might  perhaps  have  been  little  practical  evil  flowing  from  it, 
except  to  the  church  itself  and  to  its  guilty  members.  When  the 
desires  of  man,  however,  are  once  tempted  to  seek  through  unlawful 
means  the  relief  denied  to  them  by  artificial  rules,  it  is  not  easy  to 
set  bounds  to  the  unbridled  passions  which,  irritated  by  the  fruitless 
effort  at  repression,  are  no  longer  restrained  by  a  law  which  has  been 
broken  or  a  conscience  which  has  lost  its  power.  The  records  of  the 
Middle  Ages  are  accordingly  full  of  the  evidences  that  indiscriminate 
license  of  the  worst  kind  prevailed  throughout  every  rank  of  the 
hierarchy. 

Even  supposing  that  this  fearful  immorality  were  not  attributable 
to  the  immutable  laws  of  nature  revenging  themselves  for  their 
attempted  violation,  it  could  readily  be  explained  by  the  example  set 
by  the  central  head.  Scarcely  had  the  efforts  of  Nicholas  and 
Gregory  put  an  end  to  sacerdotal  marriage  in  Rome  when  the  morals 
of  the  Roman  clergy  became  a  disgrace  to  Christendom.  How  little 
the  results  of  the  reform  corresponded  with  the  hopes  of  the  zealous 
puritans  who  had  brought  it  about  may  be  gathered  from  the  mar¬ 
tyrdom  of  a  certain  Arnolfo,  who,  under  the  pontificate  of  Honorius 
II.,  preached  vehemently  against  the  scandals  and  immorality  of  the 
ecclesiastics  of  the  apostolic  city.  They  succeeded  in  making  way 
with  him,  notwithstanding  the  protection  of  Honorius,  and  the 
veneration  of  the  nobles  and  people  who  regarded  him  as  a  prophet.2 
When  such  was  the  condition  of  clerical  virtue,  we  can  scarcely 
wonder  that  sufficient  suffrages  were  given  in  1130  by  the  sacred 
college  to  Cardinal  Pier-Leone  to  afford  him  a  plausible  claim  to  the 

1  Henke,  Append,  ad  Calixt.  pp.  585-6. 

2  Trithem.  Chron.  Hirsaug.  ann.  1128. — Platina  sub  Honor.  II. 


342 


RESULTS. 


papacy,  although  he  was  notoriously  stained  with  the  foulest  crimes. 
Apparently  his  children  by  his  sister  Tropea,  and  his  carrying  about 
with  him  a  concubine  when  travelling  in  the  capacity  of  papal  legate, 
had  not  proved  a  bar  to  his  elevation  in  the  church,  nor  to  his  em¬ 
ployment  in  the  most  conspicuous  and  important  affairs.1  A  severer 
satire  on  the  standard  of  ecclesiastical  morality  could  scarcely  be 
imagined  than  the  inculcation  by  such  a  man,  in  his  capacity  as  pope, 
of  the  canons  requiring  the  separation  of  priests  from  their  wives,  on 
the  plea  of  the  spotless  purity  required  for  the  service  of  the  altar.2 

What  were  the  influences  of  the  papal  court  in  the  next  century 
may  be  gathered  from  the  speech  which  Cardinal  Hugo  made  to  the 
Lyonese,  on  the  occasion  of  the  departure  of  Innocent  IV.  in  1251 
from  their  city,  after  a  residence  of  eight  years — “  Friends,  since  our 
arrival  here,  we  have  done  much  for  your  city.  When  we  came,  we 
found  here  three  or  four  brothels.  We  leave  behind  us  but  one. 
We  must  own,  however,  that  it  extends  without  interruption  from  the 
eastern  to  the  western  gate” — the  crude  cyncism  of  which  greatly 
disconcerted  the  Lyonese  ladies  present.3  Robert  Grosseteste, 
Bishop  of  Lincoln,  therefore  only  reflected  the  popular  conviction 
when,  on  his  deathbed  in  1253,  inveighing  against  the  corruption  of 
the  papal  court,  he  applied  to  it  the  lines — 

Ejus  avaritiae  totus  non  sufficit  orbis, 

Ejus  luxuriae  meretrix  non  sufficit  omnis.4 

A  hundred  years  later  saw  the  popes  again  in  France.  For  forty 
years  they  had  bestowed  on  Avignon  all  the  benefits,  moral  and 
spiritual,  arising  from  the  presence  of  the  Vicegerent  of  Christ,  when 
Petrarch  recorded,  for  the  benefit  of  friends  whom  he  feared  to  com¬ 
promise  by  naming,  the  impressions  produced  by  his  long  residence 
there  in  the  household  of  a  leading  dignitary  of  the  church.  Lan¬ 
guage  seems  too  w'eak  to  express  his  abhorrence  of  that  third  Babylon, 
that  Hell  upon  Earth,  which  could  furnish  no  Noah,  no  Deucalion 


1  Arnulphi  Lexoviens.  de  Schismate 
cap.  iii.  (D’Achery  I.  156). 

2  Anacleti  Antipapae  Epist.  x.  (Mar- 
tene  Ampliss.  Collect.  I.  702). 

3  Matt.  Paris  ann.  1251. 

4  Matt.  Paris  Hist.  Angl.  ann.  1253. 
— The  same  author  preserves  a  legend 
that  when  Innocent  IV.  heard  of  the 


death  of  Grosseteste,  he  ordered  a  letter 
to  he  prepared  commanding  Henry  III. 
to  dig  up  and  cast  out  the  remains  of 
the  bishop.  The  following  night,  how¬ 
ever,  Grosseteste  appeared  in  his  epis¬ 
copal  robes  and  with  his  crozier  in¬ 
flicted  a  severe  castigation  on  the 
vengeful  pope,  who  thereupon  aban¬ 
doned  his  unchristian  purpose. — Ibid, 
ann.  1254. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  THE  PAPAL  COURT. 


343 


to  survive  the  deluge  that  alone  could  cleanse  its  filth — and  yet  he 
intimates  that  fear  compels  him  to  restrain  the  full  expression  of  his 
feelings.  Chastity  was  a  reproach  and  licentiousness  a  virtue.  The 
aged  prelates  surpassed  their  younger  brethren  in  wickedness  as  in 
years,  apparently  considering  that  age  conferred  upon  them  the 
license  to  do  that  from  which  even  youthful  libertines  shrank ;  while 
the  vilest  crimes  were  the  pastimes  of  pontifical  ease.1  Juvenal  and 
Brantome  can  suggest  nothing  more  shameless  or  more  foul.  Nor 
was  the  tone  of  morality  heightened  when,  fifty  years  later,  Nicholas 
de  Clemanges  takes  up  the  tale.  His  brief  reference  to  the  adulteries 
and  vileness  with  which  the  cardinals  befouled  the  papal  court,  and 
the  obscenities  in  which  their  families  imitated  their  example,  shows 
that  the  matter  was  so  generally  understood  that  it  needed  no  details.2 

The  Great  Schism  perhaps  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  improve 
the  morals  of  the  papal  court.  Yet  when  the  church  universal,  to 
close  that  weary  quarrel,  agreed  to  receive  one  of  the  competitors  as 
its  head,  surely  it  might  have  selected,  as  the  visible  representative 
of  God  upon  earth,  some  more  worthy  embodiment  of  humanity 
than  Balthazar  Cossa,  who,  as  John  XXIII.,  is  alone,  of  the  three 
competitors,  recognized  in  the  list  of  popes.  When  the  great  council 
of  Constance  in  1415  adopted  the  awful  expedient  of  trying,  con¬ 
demning,  and  deposing  a  pope,  the  catalogue  of  crimes — notorious 
incest,  adultery,  defilement,  homicide,  and  atheism — of  which  the 
fathers  formally  accused  him,  and  which  he  confessed  without  defend- 


1  Portions  of  Petrarch’s  descriptions 
are  unfit  for  transcription ;  the  follow¬ 
ing,  however,  will  give  a  sufficient  idea 
of  his  experience.  “Veritas  ihi  de¬ 
mentia  est,  abstinentia  vero  rusticitas, 
pudicitia  probrum  ingens.  Denique 
peccandi  licentia  magnanimitas  et 
libertas  eximia,  et  quo  pollutior  eo 
clarior  vita,  quo  plus  scelerum  eo 
plus  glorise.  bonum  nomen  cceno  vilius, 
atque  ultima  mercium  fama  est.  .  .  . 
Taceo  utriusque  pestis  artifices,  et  con- 
cursantes  pontificum  thalamis  proxo- 
naetas  .  .  .  Quis,  oro,  enim  non  iras- 
catur  et  rideat,  illos  senes  pueros  coma 
Candida,  togis  amplissimis,  adeoque 
lascivientibus  animis  ut  nihil  illuc 
falsius  videatur  quam  quod  ait  Maro 
‘  Frigidus  in  Venerem  senior.’  Tam 
calidi  tamque  praecipites  in  Venerem 
senes  sunt,  tanta  eos  aetatis  et  status 
et  virium  capit  oblivio,  sic  in  libidines 
inardescunt,  sic  in  omne  ruunt  dedecus, 


quasi  omnis  eorum  gloria  non  in  cruce 
Christi  sit,  sed  in  commessationibus  et 
ebrietatibus,  et  quae  has  sequuntur  in 
cubilibus,  impudicitiis :  .  .  .  atque  hoc 
unum  senectutis  ultimae  lucrum  putant, 
ea  facere  quae  juvenes  non  auderent 
.  .  .  Mitto  stupra,  raptus,  incestus, 
adulteria  qui  jam  pontificalis  lasciviae 
ludi  sunt,”  etc.  (Lib.  sine  Titulo  Epist. 
xvi.). 

In  bis  vii.  Eclogue  Petrarch  de¬ 
scribes  the  cardinals  individually. 
Their  portraits,  though  metaphorically 
drawn,  correspond  with  the  general 
character  of  the  above  extracts.  See 
also  the  Lib.  sine  Titulo  Epistt.  vii. 
viii.  ix. 

2  Hie.  de  Clamengiis  de  Ruina  Ec- 
clesiae  cap.  xvii. — Cf.  Theod.  a  Niem 
Hemor.  Union.  Tract,  vi.  cap.  xxxvi. 
xxxvii. 


344 


RESULTS. 


ing  himself,1  is  fearfully  suggestive  of  the  corruption  which  could  not 
only  spawn  such  a  monster,  but  could  elevate  him  to  the  highest 
place  in  the  hierarchy,  and  present  him  for  the  veneration  of 
Christendom.  It  affords  a  curious  insight  into  the  notions  of 
morality  prevalent  in  the  Papal  court  to  observe  that  when  he  had 
as  chamberlain  of  Boniface  IX.,  scandalized  Home  by  openly  keep¬ 
ing  his  brother’s  wife  as  a  concubine,  the  remedy  adopted  for  the 
disorder  was  to  create  him  Cardinal  and  send  him  as  legate  to 
Bologna,  while  the  lady  was  conveyed  to  her  husband  in  Naples. 
The  result  of  this  course  of  procedure  was  that  during  his  sway  at 
Bologna  two  hundred  maids,  matrons,  and  widows,  including  a  few 
nuns,  fell  victims  to  his  brutal  lust.2  So  obtuse,  in  fact,  were  the  sen¬ 
sibilities  of  the  age,  that  after  his  release  from  the  prison  to  which  he 
had  been  consigned  by  the  fathers  of  Constance,  his  successor,  Martin 
Y.  consoled  him  in  his  degradation  by  creating  him  Dean  of  the 
Sacred  College. 

If  the  Councils  of  Constance  and  of  Bale  worked  some  apparent 
reform  in  the  outward  morality  of  the  papacy,  their  effect  soon  passed 
away.  The  latter  half  of  the  fifteenth  century  scarcely  saw  a 
supreme  pontiff  without  the  visible  evidences  of  human  frailty  around 
him,  the  unblushing  acknowledgment  of  which  is  the  fittest  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  tone  of  clerical  morality.  Sixtus  IY.  was  believed 
to  embody  the  utmost  possible  concentration  of  human  wicked¬ 
ness,3  until  Borgia  came  to  divide  with  him  the  preeminence  of 


1  Quod  dominus  Johannes  papa  cum 
uxore  fratris  sui  et  cum  sanctis  moni- 
alibus  incestum,  cum  virginibus  stu- 
prum,  et  cum  conjugatis  adulterium 
et  alia  incontinentia?  crimina,  propter 
qua?  ira  Dei  descendit  in  filios  diffi- 
denti*  commisit.  .  .  .  Item  quod 
dictus  dominus  Johannes  papa  fuit 
et  sit  homo  peccator,  notorie  crimi- 
nosus  de  homicidio,  veneficio,  et  aliis 
gravibus  criminibus  quibus  irretitus 
dicitur  graviter  diffamatus,  dissipator 
bonorum  ecclesiae  et  dilapidator  eorun- 
dem,  notorius  simoniacus,  pertinax 
ha?reticus  et  ecclesiam  Christi  notorie 
scandalizans.  Item  quod  dictus  Jo¬ 
hannes  Papa  XXIII.  srepe  et  stepius 
coram  diversis  pra?latis  et  aliis  honestis 
et  probis  viris  pertinaciter,  diabolo  sua- 
dente,  dixit,  asseruit,  dogmatizavit  et 
adstruxit,  vitam  a?ternam  non  esse, 
neque  aliam  post  hanc,  etc. — Concil. 
Constantiens.  Sess.  xi. 


Even  supposing  some  of  these  special 
charges  to  have  been  manufactured  for 
the  purpose  of  effecting  the  desirable 
political  object  of  getting  rid  of  the 
objectionable  pontiff,  yet  the  profound 
conviction  of  his  vileness,  evinced  by 
the  proffering  of  such  accusations,  is 
almost  equally  damaging. 

2  Theod.  a  Niem  de  Vit.  Joann. 
XXIII. 

3  Leno  vorax,  p^thicus,  moretrix,  dela¬ 

tor,  adulter, 

Si  Romarn  veniet,  illico,  cretus  erit. 
Pa?dico  insignia,  praedo  furiosus,  adul¬ 
ter, 

Exitiumque  Urbis,  perniciesque  Dei, 
Gaude  prisce  Nero,  euperat  te  crimine 
Sixtus, 

Ilic  scelus  omne  simul  clauditur  et 
vitimn. 

Steph.  Infessurse  Diar.  Rom.  ann. 
1484  (Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  II.  1941). 


POPES  OF  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


345 


evil.  The  success  of  Innocent  VIII.  in  increasing  the  population 
of  Rome  was  a  favorite  topic  with  the  wits  of  the  day;1  but  the 
epitaph  which  declared  that  filth,  gluttony,  avarice,  and  sloth  lay 
buried  in  his  tomb2  did  not  anticipate  the  immediate  resurrection  of 
the  worst  of  those  vices  in  the  person  of  his  successor  Alexander  VI. 
If  the  crimes  of  Borgia  were  foul,  their  number  and  historical  im¬ 
portance  have  rendered  them  so  well  known  that  I  may  be  spared 
more  than  a  passing  allusion  to  a  career  which  has  made  his  name 
synonymous  with  all  that  can  degrade  man  to  a  level  at  once  with 
the  demon  and  the  brute.3 

Such  men  as  Alexander  can  hardly  be  deemed  exceptional,  save 
inasmuch  as  brilliant  talents  and  native  force  of  character  might 
enable  them  to  excel  their  contemporaries  in  guilt  as  in  ambition. 
They  w'ere  the  natural  product  of  a  system  which  for  four  centuries 
had  bent  the  unremitting  energies  of  the  church  to  securing  temporal 
power  and  wealth,  with  exemption  from  the  duties  and  liabilities  of 
the  citizen.  Such  were  the  fruits  of  the  successful  theocracy  of 
Hildebrand,  which,  intrusting  irresponsible  authority  to  fallible 
humanity,  came  to  regard  ecclesiastical  aggrandizement  as  a  full 
atonement  for  all  and  every  crime.  That  the  infection  had  spread 
even  to  the  ultimate  fibres  of  the  establishment  can  readily  be 
believed,  for  the  supremacy  of  the  Papal  authority  gave  it  the  power 
of  controlling  the  character  of  every  parish  in  Christendom.  We 
shall  see  hereafter,  as  we  have  already  seen,  how  that  power  wTas 
habitually  abused,  and  how  the  nullification  of  the  canons  wras  a 
recognized  source  of  income  to  the  successor  of  St.  Peter  and  his 
needy  officials.  The  evil  was  one  that  had  long  been  recognized  and 
complained  of  since  Hincmar  of  Rheims  so  emphatically  denounced 


1  Innocuo  priscos  ajquam  est  debere 

Quirites. 

Progenie  exhaustam  restituit  pa- 
triam. 

(Sannazarii  Epigram.  Lib.  I.) 

2  Spurcities,  gula,  avaritia,  atquo  igna- 

via  deses, 

Hoc,  Octave,  jacent  quo  tegeris  tu- 
mulo. 

(Marulli  Epigram.  Lib.  iv.) 

3  Sannazaro,  as  was  meet  in  a  Nea¬ 
politan,  hated  Alexander  cordially, 
and  was  never  weary  of  assailing  his 
wickedness.  The  relations  between 
him  and  his  daughter  Lucretia  were  a 
favorite  topic — 


Ergo  te  semper  cupiet  Lucretia  Sextus? 
0  fatum  diri  nominis  !  hie  pater  est? 

(Sannazar.  Epigr.  Lib.  n.) 

Humana  jura,  nec  minus  coelestia, 
Ipsosque  sustulit  Deos: 

Ut  silicet  liceret  (lieu  scelus)  patri 
Natas  sinum  permingere, 

Nec  execrandis  abstinere  nuptiis 
Timore  sublato  simul. 

(Ibid.) 

The  well-known  epigram  of  Ponta- 
nus  tersely  describes  another  of  his 
vices — 

Vend  it  Alexander  sacramenta,  altaria, 
Christum. 

Emerat  ille  prius,  vendere  jure  potest. 


346 


RESULTS. 


it.  St.  Bernard  declared  that  Rome  was  the  acknowledged  refuge 
of  all  ambitious  and  licentious  men  who  desired  either  promotion  or 
to  retain  the  preferment  which  they  had  forfeited.1  In  the  fiery  zeal 
with  which  he  warns  his  protege,  Eugenius  III.,  not  to  be  deceived 
by  such  suitors,  he  shows  us  how  useless  were  local  efforts  at  refor¬ 
mation  when  they  could  be  so  readily  set  aside  and  rendered  nugatory 
by  the  venal  influences  at  work  in  the  Apostolic  court.  But  the 
abuse  w^as  too  profitable  to  be  suppressed,  and  it  continued  until  after 
the  Reformation  had  shown  the  necessity  of  some  decent  reticence  in 
the  exercise  of  powers  no  longer  regarded  as  wholly  irresponsible. 


My  object  has  been  to  consider  the  subject  of  ascetic  celibacy  as  a 
portion  simply  of  ecclesiastical  history,  and  yet  I  cannot  well  con¬ 
clude  this  section  without  a  hasty  glance  at  its  influence  on  society 
at  large.  That  influence,  as  far  as  the  secular  clergy  were  its  instru¬ 
ments,  was  evidently  one  of  almost  unmixed  evil.  The  parish  priest, 
if  honestly  ascetic,  was  thereby  deprived  of  the  wholesome  common 
bond  of  human  affections  and  sympathies,  and  was  rendered  less 
efficient  for  good  in  consoling  the  sorrows  and  aiding  the  struggles 
of  his  flock.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  was  a  hypocrite,  or  if  he  had 
found  too  late  that  the  burden  he  had  assumed  was  too  heavy  for  his 
strength,  the  denial  of  the  natural  institution  of  marriage  was  the 
source  of  immeasurable  corruption  to  those  intrusted  to  his  charge, 
who  looked  up  to  him  not  only  as  a  spiritual  director,  but  as  a 
superior  being  who  could  absolve  them  from  sin,  and  whose  partner¬ 
ship  in  guilt  was  in  itself  an  absolution.2  That  such  was  the 
condition  of  innumerable  parishes  throughout  Europe,  there  is 
unfortunately  no  reason  to  doubt,  and  all  of  the  severer  churchmen 
of  the  period,  in  attacking  the  vices  of  the  clergy,  give  us  to  under¬ 
stand  that  either  their  example  led  the  laity  into  evil,  or  that  their 
immorality  rendered  it  impossible  for  them  to  correct  the  vices  of  the 
flocks.  As  Csesarius  of  Heisterbach  says,  “Since  the  priesthood 
mostly  lead  evil  and  incontinent  lives,  they  soothe  rather  than  excite 
the  consciences  of  the  worldly.”3  The  incongruity  of  this  may  per- 


1  In  comparing  the  labors  of  the  pope 
with  those  of  St.  Paul,  St.  Bernard  ex¬ 
claims,  “Numquid  ad  eum  de  toto  orbe 
confluebant  ambitiosi,  avari,  simoniaci, 
sacrilegi,  concubinarii,  incestuosi,  et 
quaeque  istiusmodi  monstra  hominum, 
ut  ipsius  apostolica  auctoritate  vel  obti- 
nerent  ecclesiasticos  honores,  vel  reti- 


nerent?” — De  Consideratione  Lib.  I. 
c.  iv. 

2  According  to  St.  Bonaventura,  this 
scandalous  doctrine  was  frequently 
taught. — Libell.  Apologet.  Quaest.  I. 

3  Dial  Mirac.  Dist.  xn.  c.  xix. 


ETHICAL  ANOMALIES. 


347 


haps  explain  to  some  extent  the  anomaly  of  the  practical  grossness  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  combined  with  the  theoretical  ascetic  purity  which 
was  held  out  as  the  duty  of  every  Christian  who  desired  to  be  accept¬ 
able  to  his  Creator. 

The  curious  contrasts  and  confusion  of  the  standard  of  morality, 
arising  from  this  striving  against  nature,  are  well  illustrated  by  a 
homily  of  the  thirteenth  century  against  marriage,  addressed  to 
youthful  nuns,  which  exhausts  all  the  arguments  that  the  ingenuity 
of  the  writer  could  suggest.  On  the  one  hand  he  appeals  to  the 
pride  which  could  be  so  well  gratified  by  the  exalted  state  of  virginity ; 
he  pictures  the  superior  bliss  vouchsafed  in  heaven  to  those  who  w^ere 
stained  by  no  earthly  contamination,  confidently  promising  them  a 
higher  rank  and  more  direct  communing  with  the  Father  than  would 
be  bestowed  on  the  married  and  the  widowed;  he  rapturously  dwells 
upon  the  inward  peace,  the  holy  ecstasy  which  are  the  portion  of 
those  who,  wedded  to  Christ,  keep  pure  their  mystic  marriage  vow ; 
and  his  ascetic  fervor  exhausts  itself  in  depicting  the  spiritual  delights 
of  a  life  of  religious  seclusion.  Mingled  inextricably  with  these  ex¬ 
alted  visions  of  beatific  mysticism,  he  presents  in  startling  contrasts 
the  retribution  awaiting  the  sin  of  licentiousness  and  the  evils  insep¬ 
arable  from  a  life  of  domestic  marriage.  With  a  crude  nastiness  that 
is  almost  inconceivable,  he  minutely  describes  all  the  discomforts  and 
suffering,  physical  and  mental,  attendant  upon  wifehood  and  mater¬ 
nity,  entering  into  every  detail  and  gloating  over  every  revolting 
circumstance  that  his  prurient  imagination  can  suggest.  The  license 
of  Shakespeare,  the  plain  speaking  of  Chaucer,  Boccaccio,  and  the 
mediaeval  trouveres  show  us  what  our  ancestors  were,  and  what  they 
were  is  easily  explained  when  such  a  medley  of  mysticism  and  gross¬ 
ness  could  be  poured  into  the  pure  ears  of  innocent  young  girls  by 
their  spiritual  director.1 


1  Hali  Meidenhad.  (Early  English 
Text  Society,  1866.)  The  author  at 
times  trenches  closely  on  Manichaeism. 
It  is  true  that  he  revives,  with  some 
variation,  the  ancient  computation  of 
the  relative  merits  of  the  various  con¬ 
ditions  of  life — “  For  wedlock  has  its 
fruit  thirtyfold  in  heaven,  widowhood 
sixtyfold ;  maidenhood  with  a  hun¬ 
dredfold  overpasses  both”  (p.  22); 
but  while  he  thus  faintly  disavows  an 
intention  to  revile  marriage,  he  again 
and  again  alludes  to  it  as  wicked  and 
impure  per  se.  “Well  were  it  for 


them,  were  they  on  the  day  of  their 
bridal  borne  to  be  buried.  ...  If  thou 
askest  why  God  created  such  a  thing 
to  be,  I  answer  thee :  God  created  it 
never  such ;  but  Adam  and  Eve  turned 
it  to  be  such  by  their  sin,  and  marred 
our  nature  ”  (p.  8). 

Virginity  he  asserts  to  be  the  highest 
attribute  of  humanity,  and  in  heaven 
virgins  are  the  equals  of  angels  and  the 
superiors  of  saints. — “  Maidenhood  is  a 
grace  granted  thee  from  heaven.  .  . 
’Tis  a  virtue  above  all  virtues,  and  to 
Christ  the  most  acceptable  of  all” 


348 


RESULTS. 


Thus,  with  the  fearful  immorality  of  which  we  have  seen  such 
ample  evidence,  the  church  still  presented  the  same  exaggerated 
asceticism  as  her  guiding  principle.  The  rhapsodies  of  St.  John 
Chrysostom  and  St.  Aldhelm  were  rivalled  in  an  age  when  the  priest 
was  forbidden  to  live  in  the  same  house  as  his  mother,  because  ex¬ 
perience  had  shown  the  danger  of  such  propinquity.  How  the  esti¬ 
mate  placed  on  purity  increased  as  virtue  diminished  is  fairly 
illustrated  in  a  characteristic  legend  which  was  very  popular  with 
ecclesiastical  teachers  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries.  It 
relates  how  a  pagan  entering  a  heathen  temple  saw  Satan  seated  in 
state  on  a  throne.  One  of  the  princes  of  Hell  entered,  worshipped 
his  master,  and  proceeded  to  give  an  account  of  his  work.  For 
thirty  days  he  had  been  engaged  in  provoking  a  war,  wherein  many 
battles  had  been  fought  wdth  heavy  slaughter.  Satan  sharply  re¬ 
proached  him  with  accomplishing  so  little  in  the  time,  and  ordered 
him  to  be  severely  punished.  Another  then  approached  the  throne 
and  reported  that  he  had  devoted  twenty  days  to  raising  tempests  at 
sea,  whereby  navies  had  been  wrecked  and  multitudes  drowned.  He 
was  likewise  reproved  and  punished  for  wasting  his  time.  A  third 
had  for  ten  days  been  engaged  in  troubling  the  wedding  festivity  of  a 
city,  causing  strife  and  murder,  and  he  was  similarly  treated.  A 
fourth  then  entered  and  recounted  how  for  forty  years  he  had  been 
occupied  in  tempting  a  hermit  to  yield  to  fleshly  desire,  and  how  he 
had  that  night  succeeded.  Then  Satan  arose  and  placed  his  crown 
on  the  head  of  the  newr-comer,  seating  him  on  the  throne  as  one  wrho 
had  worthily  achieved  a  signal  triumph.  The  spectator,  thus  seeing 


(p.  10).  “  To  sing  that  sweet  song 

and  that  heavenly  music  which  no 
saints  may  sing,  hut  maidens  only  in 
heaven.  .  .  .  But  the  maiden’s  song  is 
altogether  unlike  these,  being  common 
to  them  with  angels.  Music  beyond 
all  music  in  heaven.  In  their  circle  is 
God  himself ;  and  his  dear  mother,  the 
recious  maiden,  is  hidden  in  that 
lessed  company  of  gleaming  maidens, 
nor  may  any  but  they  dance  and  sing  ” 

(pp.  18-20). 

As  for  matrimony  and  maternity, 
nothing  can  redeem  them  in  the  eyes 
of  the  ascetic. — “All  other  sins  are 
nothing  but  sins,  but  this  is  a  sin  and 
besides  denaturalizes  thee  and  dishon- 
oreth  thy  body.  It  soileth  thy  soul 


and  maketh  it  guilty  before  God,  and, 
moreover,  defileth  thy  flesh.  .  .  .  JSTow 
what  joy  hath  the  mother?  She  hath 
from  the  misshapen  child  sad  care  and 
shame,  both,  and  for  the  thriving  one 
fear,  till  she  lose  it  for  good,  though  it 
would  never  have  been  in  being  for  the 
love  of  God,  nor  for  the  hope  of  heaven, 
nor  for  the  dread  of  hell”  (p.  34). — 
But  I  dare  not  follow  him  in  his  more 
nauseous  flights  of  imagination. 

This  is  by  no  means  a  solitary  ex¬ 
ample.  The  same  pious  obscenity  is 
to  be  found,  for  instance,  in  some  of 
Abelard’s  theological  speculations  ad¬ 
dressed  to  Heloise  and  ner  nuns,  as  in 
his  solution  of  her  42nd  problem. 


STANDARDS  OF  MORALITY. 


349 


the  high  estimate  placed  by  the  Evil  One  on  ascetic  chastity,  was 
immediately  converted,  and  forthwith  became  a  monk.1 

While  thus  attaching  so  fanciful  a  holiness  to  virginity,  the  church 
came  practically  to  erect  a  most  singular  standard  of  morality,  the 
influence  of  which  could  but  be  most  deplorable  on  the  mass  of  the 
laity.  In  the  earlier  days  of  celibacy,  the  rule  was  regarded  by  the 
severer  ecclesiastics  as  simply  an  expression  of  the  necessity  of  purity 
in  the  minister  of  God.  Theophilus  of  Alexandria,  in  the  fifth 
century,  decided  that  a  man,  who  as  lector  had  been  punished  for 
unchastity  and  had  subsequently  risen  to  the  priesthood,  must  be  ex¬ 
pelled  on  account  of  his  previous  sin.2  We  have  seen,  however,  how, 
when  celibacy  was  revived  under  Damiani  and  Hildebrand,  the 
question  of  immorality  virtually  disappeared,  and  the  essential  point 
became,  not  that  a  priest  should  be  chaste,  but  that  he  should  be  un¬ 
married,  and  this  was  finally  adopted  as  the  recognized  law  of  the 
church.  In  1213  the  Archbishop  of  Lunden  enquired  of  Innocent 
III.  whether  a  man  who  had  had  two  concubines  was  ineligible  to 
orders  as  a  digamies,  and  the  pontiff  could  only  reply  that  no  matter 
how  many  concubines  a  man  might  have,  either  at  one  time  or  in 
succession,  he  did  not  incur  the  disability  of  digamy.3  When  such 
was  the  result  of  seven  centuries  of  assiduous  sacerdotalism  in  a 
church  which  was  daily  growing  in  authority ;  when  the  people  thus 
saw  that  sexual  excesses  were  no  bar  to  ecclesiastical  preferment  in 
that  church  which  made  extravagant  pretensions  to  purity ;  when  the 
strict  rules  which  forbade  ordination  to  a  layman  who  had  married 


1  Ayenbite  of  Inwyt,  p.  328  (Early 
English  Text  Soc.  1866).  This  is  a 
translation  made  in  1340  of  “  Le  Somme 
des  Vices  et  des  Vertues,”  written  in 
1279  for  Philippe-le-Hardi,  by  Lauren- 
tius  Gallus.  The  author  is  not  a  whit 
behind  his  brother  ascetics  in  extolling 
the  praises  of  virginity. — “  V  or  mayden- 
hod  is  a  tresor  of  zuo  grat  worth  thet 
hit  ne  may  by  be  nonen  y-zet  a  pris  .  .  . 
vor  maidenhod  aboue  alle  othre  states 
berth  thet  gretteste  frut”  (Ibid.  p. 
233-4).  The  legend  would  seem  to  be 
suggested  by  a  somewhat  similar  story 
narrated  by  Gregory  the  Great  (Dialog. 
Lib.  in.  cap.  7). 

2  Theophili  Alexandrin.  Commoni- 
tor.  can.  v.  (Harduin.  I.  1198). 

3  Innocent.  III.  Regest.  Lib.  xvi. 
Epist.  118. 


The  curiously  artificial  standard  of 
morals  thus  created  may  be  estimated 
from  the  case  of  the  archdeacon  of 
Lisieux,  who  refused  to  accept  an  elec¬ 
tion  to  the  see  of  that  place  on  account 
of  his  inability  to  maintain  the  purity 
requisite  for  the  episcopal  office.  Van¬ 
quished  at  length  by  the  importunity  of 
his  friends,  he  was  consecrated,  and 
resolutely  undertook  to  abandon  his 
evil  habits.  The  unaccustomed  priva¬ 
tion  brought  on  a  fearful  disease,  but 
though  assured  that  his  life  would  prove 
a  sacrifice  if  he  persisted  in  his  resolu¬ 
tion,  he  resisted  all  entreaties,  and  re¬ 
fused  to  purchase  existence  by  sullying 
his  position.  He  thus  fell  a  martyr  to 
a  tenderness  of  conscience  which  had 
not  prevented  him  from  indulgence 
while  filling  the  responsible  position  of 
archdeacon. — Girald.  Cambrens.  Gemm. 
Eccles.  Dist.  n.  cap.  xi. 


350 


RESULTS. 


a  widow,  were  relaxed  in  favor  of  those  who  were  stained  with 
notorious  ’impurity,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  popular  perceptions  of 
morality  became  blunted,  and  that  the  laity  did  not  deny  themselves 
the  indulgences  which  they  saw  tacitly  allowed  to  their  spiritual 

Nor  was  it  only  in  stimulating  this  general  laxity  of  principle 
that  the  influence  of  the  church  was  disastrous.  The  personal  evil 
wrought  by  a  dissolute  priesthood  was  a  wide-spreading  contagion. 
The  abuse  of  the  awful  authority  given  by  the  altar  and  the  confes¬ 
sional,  was  a  subject  of  sorrowful  and  indignant  denunciation  in  too 
many  synods  for  a  reasonable  doubt  to  be  entertained  of  its  frequency 
or  of  the  corruption  which  it  spread  through  innumerable  parishes 
and  nunneries.1  The  almost  entire  practical  immunity  with  which 
these  and  similar  scandals  wrere  perpetrated  led  to  an  undisguised 
and  cynical  profligacy  which  the  severer  churchmen  acknowledged  to 
exercise  a  most  deleterious  influence  on  the  morals  of  the  laity,  who 
thus  saw  the  examplars  of  evil  in  those  who  should  have  been  their 
patterns  of  virtue.2  In  his  bull  of  1259,  Alexander  IY.  does  not 
hesitate  to  declare  that  the  people,  instead  of  being  reformed,  are 
absolutely  corrupted  by  their  pastors.3  Thomas  of  Cantinpre,  one 
of  the  early  lights  of  the  Dominican  order,  indeed,  is  authority  for 


1  Graviore  autem  sunt  animadver- 
sione  plectendi,  qui  proprias  Alias  spi¬ 
rituals,  quas  baptizaverint  vel  semel 
ad  confessionem  admiserint,  violaverint. 
— Constit.  Synod.  Gilb.  Episc.  Circes-, 
trens.  ann.  1289  (Wilkins,  II.  169b 
Cf.  Synod.  Cenomanens.  ann.  1248 
(Martene  Ampl.  Coll.  VII.  1375).  Con- 
cil.  Remens.  ann.  1408  cap.  21  (Ibid. 
VII.  418).  Concil.  Salisburg.  XXX. 
can.  de  Confess.  (Dalham,  Concil.  Salis¬ 
burg.  p.  155.) 

Abelard  (Sermo  XXIX.)  in  a  passage 
which,  though  addressed  to  the  virgins 
of  the  Paraclete,  is  hardly  quotable, 
asserts  the  frequent  corruption  of  nuns 
by  their  spiritual  directors.  See  also 
St.  Bonaventura,  Tractatus  quare  Fr. 
Minores  pnedicent,  (Romae  1773,  p.  431) 
and  Gerson,  who  retorts  the  charge  on 
the  friars,  in  his  Tract,  de  Reform.  Ec- 
cles.  in  Concil.  Constant,  cap.  x.  (Yon 
der  Hardt,  T.  I.  P.  v.  p.  93).  Cf.  Mar- 
silii  Patav.  Defens.  Pacis  P.  n.  cap. 
xvii. — Synod.  Andegavens.  ann.  1262 
cap.  x.;  ann.  1291  cap.  1;  ann.  1312 
cap.  1  (D’Achery  I.  727,  735,  742).  ) 


Similar  allusions  are  unfortunately  too 
frequent,  and,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
are  to  be  found  until  a  recent  period. 

2  In  1398,  Cardinal  Peter  d’Ailly, 
Bishop  of  Cambrai,  speaks  of  the  man¬ 
ner  in  which  his  clergy  lived  with  their 
concubines  as  man  and  wife,  and  brought 
up  their  children  without  concealment 
in  their  houses — “tenentes  secum  in 
suis  domibus  suas  concubinas,  et  mulieres 
publice  suspectas,  in  scandalum  pluri- 
morum  cohabitant  simul  copulati ,  eisdem 
domo,  mensa,  et  lecto,  residendo,  acsi 
essent  vir  et  uxor  matrimonialiter  con¬ 
junct  :  proles  super  terram  gradientes. 
ex  hujusmodi  suis  concubinis  susceptas 
una  cum  eisdem  in  suis  domibus  publice 
secum  habendo  et  tenendo  ” — (Hartz- 
heim  YI.  709). 

3  Prout  testatur  nimia  de  plerisque 
regionibus  damans  Cliristiani  populi 
corruptela,  quae  cum  deberet  ex  sacer- 
dotalis  antidoti  curari  medelis,  invalescit 
proh  dolor !  ex  malorum  contagione 
quod  procedit  a  clero. — Chron.  Augus- 
tens.  ann.  1260. 


OPINIONS  OF  LAITY. 


351 


the  legend  which  represents  the  devil  as  thanking  the  prelates  of  the 
church  for  conducting  all  Christendom  to  hell  ;l  and  the  conviction 
which  thus  expressed  itself  is  justified  by  the  reproach  of  Gregory 
X.,  who,  in  dismissing  the  second  council  of  Lyons,  in  12T4,  told 
his  assembled  dignitaries  that  they  were  the  ruin  of  the  world.2 
Unfortunately,  his  threat  to  reform  them  if  they  did  not  reform 
themselves,  remained  unexecuted,  and  the  complaint  was  repeated 
again  and  again.3 

That  this  state  of  things  was  clearly  understood  by  the  laity  is 
only  too  visibly  reflected  in  contemporary  records.  When,  in  13T4, 
the  dancing  mania,  one  of  those  strange  epidemics  which  afflicted  the 
Middle  Ages,  broke  out  through  Germany  and  Flanders,  the  populace 
called  to  mind  the  forgotten  regulations  of  Damiani  and  Hildebrand, 
and  found  a  ready  explanation  of  the  visitation  by  assuming  it  to  be 
a  consequence  of  the  vitiated  baptism  of  the  people  by  a  concubinary 
priesthood.4  Chaucer,  with  his  wide  range  of  observation  and 
shrewd  native  sense,  took  a  less  superstitious,  and  more  practical  view 
of  the  evil,  and  in  the  admirable  sermon  which  forms  his  “Persone’s 
Tale”  he  records  the  convictions  which  every  pure-minded  man 
must  have  felt  with  regard  to  the  demoralizing  tendencies  of  the 
sacerdotal  licentiousness  of  the  time.5 

How  instinctively,  indeed,  the  popular  mind  assumed  the  immo¬ 
rality  of  the  pastor  is  illustrated  by  a  passage  in  the  earliest  French 
pastoral  that  has  reached  us,  dating  from  the  latter  half  of  the 
thirteenth  century 

"Warniers.  Segneur  je  sui  trop  courechies. 

Guios.  Comment  ? 

Warniers.  Mehales  est  agute, 

M’amie,  et  s’a  este  dechute ; 

Car  on  dist  que  ch’est  de  no  prestre. 


1  According  to  Thomas  of  Cantinpre, 
this  occurrence  took  place  at  Paris,  in  a 
synod  held  in  1248,  and  Satan  explained 
his  candor  by  saying  that  he  was  com¬ 
pelled  to  it  by  God. — (Hartzheim  IX. 
663.) 

2  Inter  alia  dixit  quod  prselati  facie- 
bant  mere  totum  mundum.  .  .  .  Unde 
monuit  eos  quod  ipsi  se  corrigerent  .  .  . 
alioquin  dixit  se  dure  acturum  cum 
ipsis  super  reformatione  morum. — Har- 
duin.  VII.  692. 

3  Clerici  et  presby teri  ....  maxime 
per  fetidum  peccatum  luxuriae  seipsos  et 
alios  pertrahunt  ad  infernum. — Concil. 


Parisiens.  ann.  1323  can.  iii.  (Mar- 
tene  Ampl.  Coll.  VII.  1289). 

*  Petri  de  Herentals  Vit.  Gregor.  XI. 
ann.  1375  ( ap .  Hecker,  Epidemics  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  London,  1845,  p.  153). 

5  “  Swiche  preestes  be  the  sones  of 
Hely  .  .  .  hem  thinketh  that  they  be 
free  and  have  no  juge,  no  more  than 
hath  a  free  boll,  that  taketh  which  cow 
that  him  liketh  in  the  toun.  So  faren 
they  by  women ;  for  right  as  on  free 
boll  is  ynough  for  all  a  toun,  right  so  is 
a  wicked  preest  corruption  ynough  for 
all  a  parish,  or  for  all  a  countree.” 


352 


RESULTS. 


Rogaus.  En  non  Dieu  I  "Warmer,  bien  puet  estre ; 

Car  ele  i  aloit  trop  souvent. 

Warniers.  He,  las  !  jou  avoie  en  couvent 
De  li  temprement  espouser. 

Guios.  Tu  te  pues  bien  trop  dolouser, 

Biaus  tres  dous  amis  ;  ne  te  caille, 

Car  ja  ne  meteras  maaille, 

Que  bien  sai,  a  l’enfant  warder.1 

Those  who  were  heretically  disposed  were  keen  to  take  advantage 
of  a  weakness  so  general  and  so  universally  understood.  The  author 
of  the  “ Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman”  does  not  hesitate  to  assert  with 
Gregory  X.  that  the  clergy  were  the  corruption  of  the  world — 

Eor  falshed  of  freres 
Hath  fullich  encombred 
Manye  of  this  maner  men, 

And  made  hem  to  leven 
Her  charite  and  chastite, 

And  shosen  hereto  lustes, 

And  waxen  to  werly, 

And  wayven  the  trewethe, 

And  leven  the  love  of  her  God.2 

The  widely  received  feeling  on  this  subject,  perhaps,  finds  its 
fittest  expression  in  a  satire  on  the  mendicant  friars,  written  by  a 
Franciscan  novice  who  became  disgusted  with  the  order  and  turned 
Wickliffite.  The  exaggerated  purity  and  mortification  of  the  early 
followers  of  the  blessed  St.  Francis  had  long  since  yielded  to  the 
temptations  which  attended  on  the  magnificent  success  of  the  institu¬ 
tion,  and  the  asceticism  which  had  been  powerful  enough  to  cause 
visions  of  the  holy  Stigmata  degenerated  into  sloth  and  crime  which 
took  advantage  of  the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  privilege  to  hear 
confessions.  The  grosser  accusations  of  the  writer  are,  perhaps, 
unfit  for  quotation,  but  the  spirit  in  which  the  Franciscan  friars 
were  regarded  is  sufficiently  indicated  by  the  following  lines : 

For  when  the  gode  man  is  fro  hame 
And  the  frere  comes  to  oure  dame, 

He  spares,  nautber  for  synne  ne  shame, 

That  he  ne  dos  his  will. 

***** 


1  Li  Gieus  de  Robin  et  de  Marion  (Michel,  Theatre  Fran^ais  au  Moyen  Age, 
p.  129). 

2  Wright’s  Edition,  p.  491, 1.  1359. 


ORGANIZED  CONCUBINAGE. 


353 


Ich  man  that  here  shal  lede  his  life 
That  has  a  faire  doghter  or  a  wyfe 
Be  war  that  no  frer  ham  shryfe 
N auther  loude  ne  still.1 

When  such  was  the  moral  condition  of  the  priesthood,  and  such 
were  the  influences  which  it  cast  upon  the  flocks  intrusted  to  its 
guidance,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  those  who  deplored  so  dis¬ 
graceful  a  state  of  things,  and  whose  respect  for  the  canons  precluded 
them  from  recommending  the  natural  and  appropriate  remedy  of 
marriage,  should  regard  an  organized  system  of  concubinage  as  a 
safeguard.  However  deplorable  such  an  alternative  might  be  in 
itself,  it  was  surely  preferable  to  the  mischief  which  the  unquenched 
and  ungoverned  passions  of  a  pastor  might  inflict  upon  his  parish ; 
and  the  instances  of  this  were  too  numerous  and  too  glaring  to  admit 
of  much  hesitation  in  electing  between  the  two  evils.  Even  Gerson, 
the  leader  of  mystic  ascetics,  who  recorded  his  unbounded  admiration 
for  the  purity  of  celibacy  in  his  “  Eialogus  Natures  et  Sophies  de 
Castitate  Clericorum,”2  saw  and  appreciated  its  practical  evils,  and 
had  no  scruple  in  recommending  concubinage  as  a  preventive, 
which,  though  scandalous  in  itself,  might  serve  to  prevent  greater 
scandals.3  It  therefore  requires  no  great  stretch  of  credulity  to 
believe  the  assertion  of  Sleidan  that  in  some  of  the  Swiss  Cantons, 


1  Monumenta  Franciscana,  pp.  602-4. 

This  testimony  concerning  the  Fran¬ 
ciscans  is  not  confined  to  heretics  and 
laymen.  Early  in  the  fifteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  a  council  of  Magdeburg  took 
occasion  to  reprove  them  for  the  dis¬ 
solute  and  unclerical  mode  of  life  of 
which  they  offered  a  conspicuous  exam¬ 
ple.  It  appears  that  they  dignified  with 
the  name  of  “Marthas”  the  female 
companions  who,  in  primitive  ages, 
were  known  as  “agapetae,”  and  who 
had  latterly  acquired  among  the  secular 
clergy  the  title  of  “  focariae  ” — “  et  in 
domibus  suis  frequenter  soli  cum  muli- 
eribus  quas  ipsorum  Martas  (ut  eorum 
verbis  utamur)  habitare  non  verentur.” 
— Concil.  Magdeburg,  ann.  1403  Kubr. 
de  Poenis.  (Hartzheim  Y.  717.) 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  “Creed  of 
Piers  Ploughman,”  a  Franciscan  at¬ 
tacks  the  Carmelites — 

They  been  but  jugulers, 

And  japers  of  kyndo; 

Lorels  and  lechures, 

And  lemans  holden. 

#  *  -*■  # 


And  that  wicked  folk 
Wymmen  betraieth, 

And  begileth  hem  her  good 
With  glaverynge  wordes, 

And  therwith  holden  her  hous 
In  harlotes  warkes. 

Wright’s  Edition,  pp.  453-4. 

2  This  was  written  in  answer  to  an 
attack  on  celibacy  by  Guillaume  Saig- 
net,  entitled  “  Lamentatio  ob  coslibatu 
sacerdotum,  sive  Dialogus  Nicaenae  Con- 
stitutionis  et  Naturae  ea  di  re  conqueren- 
tis.” — Zaccaria,  Storia  Polemica  del 
Celibato  Sacro,  Praef.  p.  xiv. 

3  Yel  inexperti  forte  erant  hi  doctores 
quam  generale  et  quam  radicatum  sit 
hoc  malum,  et  quod  deteriora  flagitia 
circa  uxores  aut  filias  parochianorum  et 
abominationes  horrenclae  in  aliis  proven- 
erint  apud  multas  patrias,  rebus  stanti¬ 
bus  ut  stant,  si  quaerentur  per  tales 
censuras  arceri.  Scandalum  certe  mag¬ 
num  est  apud  parochianos  curati  ad 
concubinam  ingressus,  sed  longe  deterius 
si  erga  parochianas  suas  non  servaverit 
castitatem. — De  Yita  Spirit.  Animae 
Lect.  iv.  Corol.  xiv.  prop.  3. 

23 


354 


RESULTS. 


it  was  the  custom  to  oblige  a  new  pastor,  on  entering  upon  his  func¬ 
tions,  to  select  a  concubine,  as  a  necessary  protection  to  the  virtue 
of  his  female  parishioners,  and  to  the  peace  of  the  families  intrusted 
to  his  spiritual  direction.1  Indeed,  we  have  already  seen,  on  the 
authority  of  the  council  of  Palencia  in  1322,  that  such  a  practice  was 
not  uncommon  in  Spain. 

In  thus  reviewing  the  influences  which  a  nominally  celibate  clergy 
exercised  over  those  intrusted  to  their  care,  it  is  perhaps  scarcely  too 
much  to  conclude  that  they  were  mainly  responsible  for  the  laxity  of 
morals  which  is  a  characteristic  of  mediaeval  society.  No  one  who 
has  attentively  examined  the  records  left  to  us  of  that  society,  can 
call  in  question  the  extreme  prevalence  of  the  licentiousness  which 
everywhere  infected  it.  Christianity  had  arisen  as  the  great  reformer 
of  a  world  utterly  corrupt.  How  earnestly  its  reform  was  directed 
to  correcting  sexual  immorality  is  visible  in  the  persistence  with 
which  the  Apostles  condemned  and  forbade  a  sin  that  the  Gentiles 
scarcely  regarded  as  a  sin.  The  early  church  was  consequently  pure, 
and  its  very  asceticism  is  a  measure  of  the  energy  of  its  protest 
against  the  all-pervading  license  which  surrounded  it.  Its  teachings, 
as  we  have  seen,  remained  unchanged.  Fornication  continued  to  be 
a  mortal  sin,  yet  the  period  of  its  unquestioned  domination  over  the 
conscience  of  Europe  wTas  the  very  period  in  which  license  among  the 
Teutonic  races  was  most  unchecked.  A  church  which,  though  founded 
on  the  Gospel,  and  wielding  the  illimitable  power  of  the  Roman 
hierarchy,  could  yet  allow  the  feudal  principle  to  extend  to  the  Ujus 
primse  noctis”  or  “  droit  de  marquette,”  and  whose  ministers  in  their 
character  of  temporal  seigneurs  could  even  occasionally  claim  the 
disgusting  right  themselves2  was  evidently  exercising  its  influence  not 
for  good  but  for  evil. 


1  De  Statu.  Relig.  Lib.  i.  (Giannone 
Apolog.  cap.  14). 

2  There  is  a  tradition  that  the  Abbey 
of  Montariol  lost  its  sovereignty  over 
the  inhabitants  of  the  village  of  that 
name  in  consequenoe  of  a  revolt  caused 
by  the  monks  exacting  this  feudal  right 
in  all  its  odious  cynicism,  in  place  of 
receiving  a  payment  in  commutation  as 
was  frequently  done.  A  lively  contro¬ 
versy  has  arisen  over  the  exactness  of 
this  tradition,  and  the  Abbe  Marcellin, 
in  his  edition  of  Le  Bret’s  Histoire  de 
Montauban  seems  to  me  to  have  suc¬ 
cessfully  proved  its  falsity.  He  admits ? 


however,  that  in  his  researches  on  the 
subject  he  has  found  one  case  in  which 
an  ecclesiastic  undertook  to  enforce  his 
rights  to  the  letter ;  and  the  President 
Boyer,  writing  in  the  sixteenth  century 
(Decisiones,  No.  17  Decis.  297)  asserts 
that  he  had  seen  the  proceedings  of  a 
lawsuit  in  which  “  Rector  seu  curntus 
parochialis  praetendebat  ex  consuetudme 
primam  habere  sponsae  cognitionem  ” 

iEschbach,  Introduction  a  l’£tude  du 
)roit,  §  174).  In  some  remote  portions 
of  France  the  tribute  was  still  exacted 
“cn  nature”  by  temporal  seigneurs  as 
late  as  the  sixteenth  century,  as  appears 
from  documents  printed  by  MM.  Ma- 


RESPONSIBILITY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


355 


There  is  no  injustice  in  holding  the  church  responsible  for  the  lax 
morality  of  the  laity.  It  had  assumed  the  right  to  regulate  the  con¬ 
sciences  of  men  and  to  make  them  account  for  every  action  and  even 
for  every  thought.  When  it  promptly  caused  the  burning  of  those  who 
ventured  on  any  dissidence  in  doctrinal  opinion  or  in  matters  of  pure 
speculation,  it  could  not  plead  lack  of  authority  to  control  them  in 
practical  virtue.  Its  machinery  was  all-pervading,  and  its  power 
autocratic.  It  had  taught  that  the  priest  was  to  be  venerated  as  the 
representative  of  God  and  that  his  commands  were  to  be  implicitly 
obeyed.  It  had  armed  him  with  the  fearful  weapon  of  the  confes¬ 
sional,  and  by  authorizing  him  to  grant  absolution  and  to  pronounce 
excommunication,  it  had  delegated  to  him  the  keys  of  heaven  and 
hell.  By  removing  him  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  secular  courts 
it  had  proclaimed  him  as  superior  to  all  temporal  authority.  Through 
ages  of  faith  the  populations  had  humbly  received  these  teachings 
and  bowed  to  these  assumptions,  until  they  entered  into  the  texture 
of  the  daily  life  of  every  man.  While  thus  grasping  supremacy  and 
using  it  to  the  utmost  possibility  of  worldly  advantage,  the  church 
therefore  could  not  absolve  itself  from  the  responsibilities  inseparably 
connected  with  power,  and  chief  among  these  responsibilities  is  to  be 
numbered  the  moral  training  of  the  nations  thus  subjected  to  its  will. 
While  the  corruption  of  the  teachers  thus  had  necessarily  entailed 
the  corruption  of  the  taught,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  tire¬ 
less  energy  devoted  to  the  acquisition  and  maintenance  of  power, 
privileges,  and  wealth,  if  properly  directed,  under  all  the  advantages 
of  the  situation,  would  have  sufficed  to  render  mediaeval  society  the 
purest  that  the  world  has  ever  seen. 

That  the  contrary  was  notoriously  the  case  resulted  naturally  from 


zure  et  Hatoulet  (Fors  de  Bearn,  p.  172). 
Velly  (Hist,  de  France,  Paris,  1770,  T. 
III.  p.  325)  quotes  from  Lauriere  a  docu¬ 
ment  of  1507  which,  in  recounting  the 
privileges  of  the  barony  of  Saint-Martin 
states  that  the  Comte  d’Eu  has  the 
“droit  de  prelibation”  there,  and  Bou- 
taric  (Droits  Seigneuriaux,  Toulouse, 
1775,  p.  650)  remarks  that  he  has  met 
nobles  who  pretended  to  possess  the 
right,  but  that  it  had  been  abolished  by 
the  courts.  In  1854  M.  Bouthors,  in 
his  “Coutumes  locales  du  bailliage 
d’Amiens,”  chanced  to  allude  to  a  cus¬ 
tom  by  which  the  episcopal  officers  until 
1607  exacted  a  tribute  from  newly  mar¬ 


ried  couples  for  permission  to  pass  to¬ 
gether  the  first  three  nights  after  the 
wedding — a  custom  growing  out  of  the 
old  droit  de  marquette.  This  aroused  the 
ire  of  the  faithful,  and  M.  Louis  Y euillot 
wrote  a  treatise  in  which  he  emphati¬ 
cally  denied  that  such  a  right  had  ever 
existed,  and  a  lively  controversy  arose 
on  the  subject.  M.  Lagreze  (Hist,  du 
Droit  dans  les  Pyrenees,  Paris,  1867, 
p.  390)  has  examined  the  matter  thor¬ 
oughly  and  the  proof  which  he  accumu¬ 
lates  of  the  existence  of  the  right  is 
Indisputable,  though  he  denies  that  it 
was  ever  claimed  by  ecclesiastics. 


356 


RESULTS. 


the  fact  that  the  church,  after  the  long  struggle  which  finally  left  it 
supreme  over  Europe,  contented  itself  with  the  worldly  advantages 
derivable  from  the  wealth  and  authority  which  surpassed  its  wildest 
dreams.  If,  then,  it  could  secure  a  verbal  submission  to  its  doctrines 
of  purity,  it  was  willing  to  issue  countless  commands  of  chastity 
and  to  tacitly  connive  at  their  perpetual  infraction.  The  taint  of 
corruption  infected  equally  its  own  ministers  and  the  peoples  com¬ 
mitted  to  their  charge,  and  the  sacerdotal  theory  gradually  came  to 
regard  with  more  and  more  indifference  obedience  to  the  Gospel  in 
comparison  with  obedience  to  man  and  subservience  to  the  temporal 
interests  of  the  hierarchy.  As  absolution  and  indulgence  grew  to 
be  a  marketable  commodity,  it  even  became  the  interest  of  the  traders 
in  salvation  to  have  a  brisk  demand  for  their  wares.  When  infrac¬ 
tion  of  the  Divine  precepts  could  be  redeemed  with  a  few  pence  or 
with  the  performance  of  ceremonies  that  had  lost  their  significance, 
it  is  not  surprising  if  priest  and  people  at  length  were  led  to  look 
upon  the  violation  of  the  Decalogue  with  the  eye  of  the  merchant 
and  customer  rather  than  with  the  spirit  of  the  great  Lawgiver.1 

The  first  impulse  in  the  reaction  of  the  sixteenth  century  was  to 
recur  to  the  Gospel  and  to  interpret  its  commands  in  accordance  with 
the  immutable  principles  of  human  conscience  rather  than  with  the 
cunningly  devised  subtleties  of  scholastic  theology.  The  reformers 
thus  stood  face  to  face  with  God,  and,  needing  no  intermediary  to 
negotiate  with  Him,  vice  and  sin  reappeared  to  them  in  all  their 
hideous  deformity  and  attended  with  all  their  inevitable  consequences.2 
Eor  the  first  time  since  primitive  Christianity  was  absorbed  in  sacer¬ 
dotalism,  were  the  doctrines  of  morality  enforced  as  the  primal  laws 


1  See  the  Taxce  Saci'ce  Poenitentiarice, 
a  tariff  of  prices  for  absolution  in  the 
Roman  curia  for  all  infractions  of 
human  and  divine  law,  of  which  more 
hereafter. 

Heretically  inclined  reformers  did 
not  hesitate  to  accuse  the  clergy  of  thus 
speculating  in  the  power  of  the  keys 
and  the  sins  of  the  people — 

The  power  of  the  apostles 
Thei  pasen  in  speche, 

For  to  sellen  the  synnes 
For  selver  other  mede. 

And  purliche  a  poena 
The  puplo  asoyletb, 

And  a  culpa  also, 

That  they  may  katchen 
Money  other  money-worth, 

And  mede  to  fonge; 


And  ben  at  lone  and  at  bode, 

As  burgeises  useth. 

Thus  they  serven  Sathanas, 

And  soules  bygyleth, 

Marchaunes  of  malisones, 

Mansede  wrecchcs. 

Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman,  1.  1417-32. 

2  The  curious  confusion  of  vice  with 
religion,  fostered  by  mediaeval  sacer¬ 
dotalism,  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
complaint  which  Erasmus  puts  in  the 
mouth  of  theVirgin — “Etnonnumquam 
ea  petunt  a  virgine  quae  vcrecundus 
juvenis  vix  auderet  petere  a  lena, 
quaeque  ne  pudet  literis  committere” 
(Erasmi  Colloq.  Peregrinatio  Religi- 
onis).  The  existence  of  such  incon¬ 
sistencies  is  one  of  the  unfathomable 
mysteries  of  human  intelligence. 


INFLUENCE  OF  MONACHISM. 


357 


of  man’s  being  and  of  human  society,  and  the  world  was  made  to 
see,  by  the  energetic  action  of  Puritan  sects,  that  virtue  was  possible 
as  the  rule  of  life  in  large  communities.  We  may  smile  at  the  eccen¬ 
tricities  of  Puritanism,  but  the  rescue  of  modern  civilization  from 
the  long  heritage  of  ancient  vice,  and  the  decency  which  charac¬ 
terizes  modern  society,  may  fairly  be  attributed  to  the  force  of 
that  fierce  reaction  against  the  splendid  corruptions  of  the  mediaeval 
church. 

In  considering,  however,  the  influence  of  the  regular  clergy,  or 
monastic  orders,  we  find  a  more  complex  array  of  motives  and  results. 
The  earlier  foundations  of  the  West,  as  we  have  seen,  to  a  great 
extent  neutralized  the  inherent  selfishness  of  monachism  by  the 
regulations  which  prescribed  a  due  proportion  of  labor  to  be  mingled 
with  prayer.  The  duty  which  man  owes  to  the  world  was  to  some 
extent  recognized  as  not  incompatible  with  the  duty  which  he  owed 
to  his  God,  and  civilization  has  had  few  more  efficient  instruments 
than  the  self-denying  work  of  the  earnest  men  who,  from  Columba 
to  Adalbert,  sowed  the  seeds  of  Christianity  and  culture  among  the 
frontier  lands  of  Christendom.  When  discipline  such  as  these  men 
inculcated  could  be  enforced,  the  benefits  of  monachism  far  out¬ 
weighed  its  evils.  All  the  peaceful  arts,  from  agriculture  to  music, 
owed  to  the  Benedictines  their  preservation  or  their  advancement, 
and  it  would  be  difficult  to  estimate  exactly  the  influence  for  good 
which  resulted  from  institutions  to  which  the  thoughtful  and  studious 
could  safely  retire  from  a  turbulent  and  barbarous  world.  These 
institutions,  however,  from  their  own  inherent  defects,  carried  in 
them  the  germs  of  corruption.  The  claims  to  supereminent  sanctity, 
which  secured  for  them  the  privileges  of  asylums,  were  inevitably 
used  as  means  for  the  accumulation  of  wealth  wrung  from  the  fears 
or  superstition  of  the  sinner.  With  wealth  came  the  abandonment 
of  labor ;  and  idleness  and  luxury  were  the  prolific  parents  of  license. 
True-hearted  men  were  not  wanting  to  combat  the  irrepressible  evil. 
From  Chrodegang  to  St.  Vincent  de  Paul,  the  history  of  monachism 
is  full  of  illustrious  names  of  those  who  devoted  themselves  to  the 
mission  of  reforming  abuses  and  restoring  the  ideal  of  the  perfect 
monk,  dead  to  the  seductions  of  the  world,  and  living  only  to  do  the 
work  which  he  deems  most  acceptable  to  God.  Many  of  these  mis¬ 
takenly  assumed  that  exaggerated  mortification  was  the  only  gateway 
to  salvation,  and  the  only  cure  for  the  frightful  immorality  which 


358 


KESULTS. 


pervaded  so  many  monastic  establishments.  Others,  with  a  truer 
insight  into  the  living  principles  of  Christianity,  sought  to  turn  the 
enthusiasm  of  their  disciples  to  account  in  works  of  perennial  mercy 
and  charity,  at  a  period  when  no  other  organizations  existed  for  the 
succor  of  the  helpless  and  miserable. 

Yet  when  we  reflect  how  large  a  proportion  of  the  wealth  and 
intellect  of  Europe  was  absorbed  in  the  religious  houses,  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  system  wTas  a  most  cumbrous  and  imperfect  one,  which 
gave  but  a  slender  return  for  the  magnitude  of  the  means  which  it 
involved.  Still,  it  was  the  only  system  existing,  and  possibly  the 
only  one  which  could  exist  in  so  rude  a  structure  of  society,  indi¬ 
vidualized  to  a  degree  which  destroyed  all  sense  of  public  responsi¬ 
bility,  and  precluded  all  idea  of  a  state  created  for  the  well-being  of 
its  component  parts.  Thus,  the  monastery  became  the  shelter  of 
the  wayfarer,  and  the  dispenser  of  alms  to  the  needy.  It  was  the 
principal  school  of  the  poor  and  humble ;  and  w'hile  the  Universities 
of  Oxford  and  Paris  were  devoting  their  energies  to  unprofitable 
dialectics  and  the  subtle  disputations  of  Aristotelian  logic,  in  multi¬ 
tudes  of  abbey  libraries  quiet  monks  wTere  multiplying  priceless 
manuscripts,  and  preserving  to  after  ages  the  treasures  of  the  past. 
When  fanciful  asceticism  did  not  forbid  the  healing  of  the  sick, 
monks  labored  fearlessly  in  hospitals  and  pest-houses,  and  distributed 
among  the  many  the  benefactions  which  they  had  wrung  from  the 
late  repentance  of  the  few.  As  time  wTore  on,  even  the  religious 
teaching  of  the  public  passed  almost  exclusively  into  their  hands, 
and  to  the  followers  of  Dominic  and  Francis  of  Assisi  the  people 
owed  such  insight  as  they  could  obtain  into  the  promises  of  the 
gospel.  If  the  enthusiasm  which  prompted  labors  so  strenuous  did 
not  shrink  from  lighting  the  fires  of  persecution,  we  must  remember 
that  religious  zeal,  accompanied  by  irresponsible  power,  has  one 
invariable  history. 

While  thus,  in  various  ways,  the  ascetic  spirit  led  to  institutions 
■which  promoted  the  progress  of  civilization,  in  others  it  necessarily 
had  a  directly  opposite  tendency.  Nothing  contributes  more  strongly 
to  the  extension  of  knowledge  and  of  culture  than  the  striving  for 
material  comfort  and  individual  advancement  in  worldly  well-being. 
Luxury  and  ambition  thus  have  their  uses  in  stimulating  the  inquir¬ 
ing  and  inventive  faculties  of  man,  in  rendering  the  forces  of  nature 
subservient  to  our  use,  and  in  softening  the  rugged  asperities  which 
are  incompatible  with  the  regular  administration  of  law.  Every 


INFLUENCE  OF  ASCETICISM. 


359 


instinct  of  human  nature  has  its  destined  purpose  in  life,  and  the 
perfect  man  is  to  be  found  in  the  proportionate  cultivation  of  each 
element  of  his  character,  not  in  the  exaggerated  development  of 
those  faculties  which  are  deemed  primarily  good,  nor  in  the  entire 
repression  of  those  which  are  evil  only  when  their  prominence  de¬ 
stroys  the  balance  of  the  whole.  The  ascetic  selected  for  eradication 
one  group  of  human  aspirations,  which  was  the  most  useful  under 
proper  discipline,  and  not  perhaps  the  worst  even  in  its  ordinary 
excess.  Only  those  who  have  studied  the  varied  aspects  of  medi¬ 
aeval  society  can  rightly  estimate  the  enormous  influence  which  the 
church  possessed,  in  those  ages  of  faith,  to  mould  the  average  habits 
of  thought  in  any  desired  direction.  It  can  readily  be  seen  that  if 
the  tireless  preaching  of  the  vanity  of  human  things  and  the  beati¬ 
tude  of  mortification  occasionally  produced  such  extravagances  as 
those  of  the  flagellants,  the  spirit  which  now  and  then  burst  forth 
in  such  eruption  must  have  been  an  element  of  no  little  power  in 
the  forces  which  governed  society  at  large,  and  must  have  exercised 
a  most  depressing  influence  in  restraining  the  general  advance  of 
civilization.  Not  only  did  it  thus  more  or  less  weigh  down  the 
efforts  of  almost  every  man,  but  the  ardent  minds  that  would  other¬ 
wise  have  been  leaders  in  the  race  of  progress  were  the  ones  most 
likely,  under  the  pervading  spirit  of  the  age,  to  be  the  foremost  in 
maceration  and  self-denial ;  while  those  who  would  not  yield  to  the 
seduction  were  either  silenced  or  wasted  their  wisdom  on  a  genera¬ 
tion  which  believed  too  much  to  believe  in  them.  When  idleness 
was  holy,  earnest  workers  had  little  chance. 

The  effect  of  monastic  asceticism  in  moulding  the  character  may 
be  seen  in  the  admiring  picture  drawn  by  a  disciple  in  the  fifteenth 
century  of  a  shining  light  of  the  Carthusian  order  in  the  monastery 
of  Yallis  Dei,  near  Seez  in  Normandy.  He  had  every  virtue,  he  was 
an  earnest  reader  and  transcriber  of  MSS.,  and  he  practised  mortifi¬ 
cations  even  greater  than  those  prescribed  by  the  severe  rules  of  the 
order.  lie  rarely  slept  on  the  couch  provided  for  each  brother,  but 
passed  his  nights  in  prayer  on  the  steps  of  the  altar.  In  the  hair 
shirt  worn  next  his  skin  he  cultivated  lice  and  maggots  so  assiduously 
that  they  were  often  seen  crawling  over  his  face,  and  he  scourged 
himself  for  every  unhallowed  wandering  thought.  He  had  preserved 
his  virginity  to  old  age,  and  his  life  had  been  passed  in  the  church, 
yet  in  his  daily  confessions  he  accused  himself  of  every  sin  possible 
to  man,  and  he  rigorously  performed  whatever  penance  was  assigned 


360 


RESULTS. 


to  him.  With  all  this  maceration,  the  flesh  would  still  assert  itself, 
and  he  was  tormented  with  evil  desires  which  the  sharp  cords  of  the 
discipline  failed  to  subdue.  His  office  of  procureur  of  the  abbey 
required  him  to  make  frequent  visits  on  business  to  the  neighboring 
town,  and  he  never  left  the  gates  of  his  retreat  without  lamenting 
and  expressing  the  fear  that  he  should  not  return  to  it  the  same  as 
he  left  it.1  If  we  consider  what  might  have  been  effected  by  the 
energies  of  thousands  of  men  such  as  this,  had  those  energies  not 
been  absorbed  in  lifelong  asceticism,  we  may  conceive  in  some  mea¬ 
sure  the  retardation  of  human  progress  wrought  by  the  influence  of 
monachism. 

Another  result  which  may  fairly  be  attributed  to  the  ascetic  teach¬ 
ings  of  the  church  is  the  slow  growth  of  population  during  the  medi¬ 
aeval  period.  Notwithstanding  the  gross  and  flagrant  disregard  of 
the  rule,  it  was  impossible  to  immure  in  convents  men  and  women 
by  the  hundred  thousand  during  successive  generations  without 
retarding  greatly  the  rate  of  increase  of  the  species.  The  rudeness 
of  the  arts  and  sciences,  war,  pestilence  and  famine  were  doubtless 
efficient  causes,  yet  were  they  less  efficient  than  enforced  celibacy. 
This  is  evident  when  we  see  the  rapid  rate  of  growth  established  on 
the  abrogation  or  even  relaxation  of  the  rule.  The  suppression  of 
the  monastic  orders  in  France  followed  soon  after  the  reforms  by 
which  Joseph  II.  discouraged  them  throughout  the  Austrian  empire, 
and  the  result  is  visible  in  the  enormous  increase  of  European  popu¬ 
lation  which  followed,  notwithstanding  the  fearful  destruction  of  life 
in  the  Napoleonic  wars.  It  is  calculated  that  in  1788  Europe  num¬ 
bered  144,561,000  souls,  which  within  fifty  years  had  been  aug¬ 
mented  to  253,622,000,  or  about  seventy-five  per  cent.  Of  late 
years  the  birth-rate  has  decreased  in  consequence  of  the  severity  of 
conscription  in  the  military  monarchies,  but  the  enormous  growth  in 
the  half-century  following  the  French  Revolution  is  the  best  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  influences  which  for  so  many  ages  kept  the  popu¬ 
lation  almost  stationary.2 

It  required  the  unbelief  of  the  fifteenth  century  to  give  free  rein 
to  the  rising  commercial  energies  and  the  craving  for  material  im- 

1  Anon.  Cartusiens.  de  Religionum  Orig.  cap.  17-19  (Martene  Ampl.  Coll. 
VI.  40-46). 

2  See  Lecky’s  History  of  Rationalism. 


MONACHISM. 


361 


provement  that  paved  the  way  for  the  overthrow  of  ascetic  sacer¬ 
dotalism.  The  fearful  corruptions  of  the  church,  which  indirectly 
caused  and  accompanied  that  awakening  of  the  human  mind,  will  be 
alluded  to  hereafter  when  we  come  to  consider  the  movements  lead¬ 
ing  to  the  great  Protestant  Reformation.  At  present  we  must  turn 
aside  for  a  moment  to  consider  one  or  two  external  developments 
of  the  religious  activity  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


XXII. 


THE  MILITARY  ORDERS. 


The  Military  Orders  were  the  natural  expression  of  the  singular 
admixture  of  religious  and  warlike  enthusiasm,  reacting  on  each 
other,  which  produced  and  was  fostered  by  the  Crusades.  When 
bishops  considered  that  they  rendered  a  service  acceptable  to  God  in 
leading  vast  hosts  to  slaughter  the  Paynim,  it  was  an  easy  transition 
for  soldiers  to  turn  monks,  and  to  consecrate  their  swords  to  the 
bloody  work  of  avenging  their  Redeemer. 

When  the  Hospitallers — Knights  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem,  of 
Rhodes,  or  of  Malta — first  emerged  from  their  humble  position  of 
ministering  to  the  afflictions  of  their  fellow-pilgrims,  and  commenced 
to  assume  a  military  organization  under  Raymond  du  Puy,  about 
the  year  1120,  their  statutes  required  the  three  ordinary  monastic 
vows  of  poverty,  obedience,  and  chastity.1  In  fact,  they  were  at 
first  Benedictines ;  but  when  they  became  numerous  enough  to  form 
a  separate  body,  they  adopted  the  rule  of  St.  Augustin. 

When  the  rule  for  the  Templars — “  Regula  pauperum  commili- 
tonum  sanctse  civitatis” — was  adopted  in  1128,  at  the  council  of 
Troyes,  it  contained  no  special  injunction  to  administer  a  vow  of 
celibacy,  but  the  context  shows  that  such  a  condition  was  understood 
as  a  matter  of  course.2  Some  little  difficulty  was  evidently  experi- 


1  Videlicet  castitatem,  obedientiam 
.  .  .  atque  vivere  sine  proprio. — Sta- 
tut.  Ord.  S.  Johan.  Hierosol.  Tit.  I. 
§  1  (Liinig  Cod.  Ital.  Diplom.  T.  II. 
p.  1743). 

2  Thus  Cap.  lv.  :  “  Hoc  enim  injus- 
tum  consideramus  ut  cum  fratribus 
Deo  castitatem  promittentibus  fratres 
hujusmodi  in  una  eademque  domo 
maneant.”  Cap.  lvi.  and  lxxii.,  by 
the  latter  of  which  even  the  kiss  of  a 
mother  was  denied  them,  render  evi¬ 
dent  the  extreme  asceticism  which  was 
proposed  by  the  founders  of  the  order 


(Harduin.  T.  VI.  P.  II.  pp.  1142, 
1146). 

At  a  subsequent  period  we  learn  that 
the  Templar’s  oath  of  initiation  prom¬ 
ised  “obedientiam,  castitatem,  vivere 
sine  proprio,  et  succurrere  terrae  sanct® 
pro  posse  suo.”  It  was,  moreover,  en¬ 
joined  upon  them  not  to  enter  a  house 
in  which  a  woman  lay  in  child-bed,  not 
to  be  present  at  the  celebration  of  wed¬ 
dings  or  the  purification  of  women,  nor 
to  receive  any  service  from  a  woman, 
even  water  for  washing  the  hands. — See 
the  proceedings  against  them  in  1309, 
in  Wilkins,  II.  33 i  et  seq. 


ORDERS  OF  THE  TEMPLE  AND  OF  ST.  JAMES.  363 

enced  at  first,  since,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  novices  had  to  be 
trained  warriors  who  must  frequently  have  been  bound  by  family 
ties,  and  whose  education  had  not  been  such  as  to  fit  them  for  the 
restraints  of  their  new  life.  It  is  probable  also  that  the  perpetual 
nature  of  the  obligations  assumed  was  not  easy  to  be  enforced  upon 
the  fierce  members  of  the  brotherhood,  for,  in  1183,  Lucius  III.,  in 
confirming  the  privileges  of  the  order,  specially  commands  that  no 
one  who  enters  it  shall  be  allowed  to  return  to  the  world.1 

The  history  of  these  two  orders  is  too  well  known  to  require  it  to 
he  traced  minutely  here.  If,  with  the  growth  of  their  reputation 
and  wealth,  the  austere  asceticism  of  their  early  days  was  lost,  and 
if  luxury  and  vice  took  the  place  of  religious  enthusiasm  and  sol¬ 
dierly  devotion  to  the  Cross,  they  but  obeyed  the  universal  law  which 
in  human  institutions  is  so  apt  to  render  corruption  the  consequence 
of  prosperity.  One  conclusion  may  be  drawn,  however,  from  the 
proceedings  by  which  the  powerful  order  of  the  Temple  was  extin¬ 
guished  at  the  commencement  of  the  fourteenth  century.  Notwith¬ 
standing  the  open  and  scandalous  licentiousness  of  the  order,  it  is  a 
little  singular  that  the  interminable  articles  of  accusation  against  the 
members  contain  no  allusion  to  unchastity,  while  crimes  most  fan¬ 
tastic,  practices  most  beastly,  and  charges  most  frivolous  are  heaped 
upon  them  in  strange  confusion.2  As  the  object  of  those  who  con¬ 
ducted  the  prosecution  was  to  excite  a  popular  abhorrence  that  would 
justify  the  purposed  spoliation,  it  is  evident  that  the  simple  infraction 
of  vows  of  chastity  was  regarded  as  so  venial  a  fault  and  so  much  a 
matter  of  course  that  its  proof  could  in  no  way  serve  the  end  of 
rousing  indignation  against  the  accused. 

It  is  somewhat  remarkable  that  the  same  century  which  saw  the 
foundation  of  the  orders  of  the  Hospital  and  Temple  also  witnessed 
one  which,  although  bound  by  the  rule  of  St.  Augustin,  and  sub¬ 
jected  to  the  ordinary  vows  of  obedience,  property  in  common,  and 
inability  to  return  to  the  world,  yet  allowed  to  its  members  the  option 
of  selecting  either  marriage  or  celibacy,  and  even  of  contracting  sec¬ 
ond  marriages.  This  was  the  Spanish  Order  of  St.  James  of  the 
Sword.  What  we  have  seen  of  the  want  of  respect  paid  by  the 
Spanish  church  to  asceticism  may  lessen  surprise  at  the  founding  of 
an  order  based  upon  such  regulations,  yet  it  is  difficult  to  understand 


1  Rymer,  Fcedera,  I.  55. 

2  Wilkins  II.  331-2. — Raynouard,  Condamnation  des  Templiers,  p.  83. 


304 


THE  MILITARY  ORDERS. 


how  so  great  a  violation  of  established  principles  could  be  sanctioned 
by  Alexander  III.,  who  confirmed  the  order  in  1175/  or  by  Inno¬ 
cent  III.  and  Honorius  III.,  who  formally  approved  its  privileges.1 2 
Perhaps  these  military  vassals  of  the  pope,  to  whom  they  were  bound 
in  implicit  obedience  as  their  head,  were  too  important  a  source  of 
power  and  influence  to  be  lightly  rejected.  Perhaps,  also,  Honorius 
III.  may  have  quieted  his  conscience  when,  in  confirming  their 
charters  in  1223,  he  commanded  that  their  principal  care  and  watch¬ 
fulness  should  be  devoted  to  seeing  that  those  who  were  married 
preserved  conjugal  fidelity,  and  that  those  who  elected  a  single  life 
maintained  inviolable  chastity. 

The  example  was  one  of  evil  import  in  the  Peninsula.  The 
Council  of  Valladolid  in  1322  felt  itself  obliged  to  denounce  under 
severe  penalties  the  practice  of  dowering  children  with  the  possessions 
of  the  community,  in  which  the  military  orders  followed  the  precedent 
set  them  by  the  church.3  During  the  universal  license  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  when  ascetic  vows  became  a  mockery,  and  the 
profligacy  of  those  who  took  them  exposed  all  such  observances  to 
contempt,  the  military  orders  formed  no  exception  to  the  general 
shamelessness.  In  1429  the  council  of  Tortosa  deplored  the  destruc¬ 
tion  and  waste  of  the  temporal  possessions  of  the  religious  knights 
from  the  general  concubinage  in  which  they  indulged,  and  to  effect  a 
cure  it  promulgated  regulations  of  peculiar  severity,  threatening  with 
a  liberal  hand  the  penalties  of  excommunication  and  degradation.4 
These  proved  as  powerless  as  usual,  and  not  long  after  a  more 
sensible  remedy  was  adopted  by  Eugenius  IV.  when  he  released  the 
ancient  and  renowned  Order  of  Calatrava  from  the  obligation  of 
celibacy,  for  reasons  which  would  have  led  him  to  extend  the  privilege 
of  marriage  to  the  whole  church,  had  the  purity  of  ecclesiastics  been 
truly  the  object  of  the  rule.  He  recounts  with  sorrow  the  disorderly 
lives  of  the  knights,  and,  quoting  the  text  which  says  that  it  is  better 
to  marry  than  to  burn,  he  grants  the  privilege  of  marriage  because 
he  deems  it  preferable  to  live  with  a  wife  than  with  a  mistress.5 

How  could  he  avoid  applying  his  own  reasoning  to  the  church  in 
? 


1  Alexandri  III.  Epist.  Append,  in. 
No.  20  (Harduin.  VI.  P.  ii.  p.  1557). 

2  Raynald.  Annal.  ann.  1210  No.  6, 
7 ;  ann.  1223  No.  54;  ann.  1496  No.  33. 

3  Concil  Vallis-oletan.  ann.  1322 

can  vi.  (Aguirre  Y.  243). 


4  Concil.  Dertusan.  ann.  1429  can.  iii. 
(Harduin.  VIII.  1076). 

5  Raynaldi  Annal.  ann.  1441  No.  20. 
— The  Order  of  Calatrava  was  under 
the  strictest  of  the  rules,  the  Cistercian. 
(Giustiniani,  Ordini  Militari  s.  v.) 


PORTUGUESE  ORDERS. 


865 


Similar  arguments  were  employed  to  extend  the  same  privilege  to 
the  Orders  of  Avis  and  of  Jesus  Christ,  of  Portugal.  The  former 
was  founded  in  1147  by  Alfonso  I.,  under  the  Cistercian  rule, 
and  chastity  was  one  of  its  fundamental  obligations ; 1  the  latter  was 
the  continuation  of  the  order  of  the  Temple,  which,  preserved  in 
Portugal  by  the  humanity  of  King  Dionysius,  assumed  in  the  four¬ 
teenth  century  the  name  of  Jesus.  Both  institutions  became  in¬ 
curably  corrupted;  their  preceptories  were  dens  of  avowed  and 
scandalous  prostitution,  and  their  promiscuous  amours  filled  the 
kingdom  with  hate  and  dissension.  When  at  length,  in  1496,  King 
Emanuel  applied  to  Alexander  VI.  to  grant  the  privilege  of  marriage, 
in  hopes  of  reforming  the  orders,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how 
instinctively  the  minds  of  men  turned  to  this  as  the  sole  efficient 
remedy  for  the  immorality  which  all  united  in  attributing  to  the 
hopeless  attempt  to  enforce  a  purity  impossible  in  the  existing  condi¬ 
tion  of  society.  Alexander  assented  to  the  request,  and  bestowed  on 
the  orders  the  right  of  marriage  on  the  same  conditions  as  those 
enjoined  on  the  Knights  of  St.  James  of  the  Sword.2  It  is  true 
that  Osorius  doubts  whether  the  benefits  of  the  change  were  not 
exceeded  by  its  evils,  as  he  states  that  it  lowered  the  character  of  the 
orders,  opened  the  door  to  unworthy  members,  and  led  to  the  dissi¬ 
pation  of  their  property.3 

There  was  another  Portuguese  order  of  a  somewhat  different 
character.  Twenty  years  after  founding  the  Knights  of  Avis, 
Alfonso  I.,  in  1167,  to  commemorate  his  miraculous  victory  over  the 
Moors  at  Santarem,  instituted  the  Order  of  St.  Michael.  The 
knights  were  allowed  to  marry  once ;  if  widowed,  they  were  obliged 
to  embrace  celibacy;  and  the  Abbot  of  Alcoba^a,  who  was  the 
superior  of  the  Order,  was  empowered  to  excommunicate  them  for 
irregularity  of  life,  to  compel  them  to  give  up  their  mistresses. 


1  Reg.  Ord.  Mil.  Avisii  a  B.  Joanne 
Cirita  edita  (Migne’s  Patrologia,  T. 
188,  p.  1669). 

2  Alexander’s  Bull  declares  that 
“  Milites  dictarum  militiarum  pro  majori 
parte,  continents  et  castitatis  voto,  qui 
in  eorum  professione  emittunt,  con- 
tempto,  concubinas  etiam  plures,  et  in 
eorum  ac  praeceptoriarum  et  prioratum 
dictarum  militarum  propriis  domibus 
et  locis,  non  sine  magno  religionis  op- 
probrio,  publice  tenere  et  eis  cohabitare, 


et  etiam  adulteria  cum  aliis  mulieribus 
conjugatis  committere  non  verentur : 
ex  quo  ab  eorundem  regnorum  incolis 
et  habitatoribus  maximo  odio  habentur, 
dissensiones  et  inimicitiae  oriuntur,  di- 
versa  scandala  quotidie  concitantur 
etc.” — Raynaldi  Annal.  ann.  1496  No. 
38. 

3  Osorii  de  Reb.  Emmanuelis  R.  Lusi- 
tan.  Lib.  I.  (Edit.  Colon.  1574,  p. 
12a.) 


366 


THE  MILITARY  ORDERS. 


They  were  moreover  bound  to  perform  the  same  religious  exercises 
as  lay  brothers  of  the  Cistercians.  The  Order  is  interesting  as 
forming  a  curious  link  between  the  secular,  religious,  and  military 
elements  of  the  period.1 

During  all  this,  the  knights  of  St.  John  adhered  to  their  ancient 
statutes,  and  endeavored  from  time  to  time  to  reform  the  profligacy 
which  seemed  inseparable  from  the  institution.  When  the  ascetic 
Antonio  Fluviano,  who  held  the  grand  mastership  from  1421  to 
1437,  promulgated  a  regulation  that  any  one  guilty  of  public  con¬ 
cubinage  should  receive  three  warnings,  with  severe  penalties  for 
contumacy,2  it  suggests  a  condition  of  morals  by  no  means  creditable 
to  the  brethren.  So,  a  century  later,  the  stern  Yilliers  de  l’lsle- 
Adam  was  forced  to  declare  that  any  one  openly  acknowledging  an 
illegitimate  child  should  be  forever  after  incapacitated  for  office, 
benefice,  or  dignity.3  What  the  knights  wTere  soon  afterwards,  the 
scandalous  pages  of  Brantome  sufficiently  attest. 

The  Marian  or  Teutonic  Order,  perhaps  the  most  wealthy  and 
powerful  of  all,  was  founded  in  1190,  and  adopted  the  rule  of  the 
Templars  as  regards  its  religious  government,  with  that  of  the 
Hospitallers  to  regulate  its  duties  of  charity  and  hospitality.  For  a 
full  century  of  its  existence  it  was  sorely  oppressed  with  poverty,4 
but  at  length,  when  transferred  from  the  Holy  Land  to  Northeastern 
Germany,  it  bore  a  prominent  part  in  Christianizing  those  regions, 
and  what  it  won  by  the  sword  it  retained  possession  of  in  its  own 
right.  With  wealth  came  indolence  and  luxury,  and  the  order 
became  corrupt,  as  others  had  been.5  Its  history  offers  nothing  of 
special  interest  to  us  until,  in  1525,  the  grand  master  Albert  of 
Brandenburg  went  over  to  Lutheranism  with  many  of  his  knights, 
founded  the  hereditary  dukedom  of  Prussia,  and  married — of  which 
more  hereafter.  Those  of  the  order  who  adhered  to  Catholicism 
maintained  the  organization  on  the  rich  possessions  which  the  piety 
of  ages  had  bestowed  upon  them  throughout  Germany,  until  this 
wmrn-out  relic  of  the  past  disappeared  in  the  convulsions  of  the 
Napoleonic  wars. 


1  Patrologia,  T.  188,  p.  1674. 

2  Statut.  Ord.  S.  Johan.  Ilierosol. 
Tit.  xviii.  \  50. 

3  Ibid.  Tit.  xviii.  $  51. 

4  See  the  supplication  of  Rodolph  of 


Hapsburg  to  the  Pope  for  assistance  to 
the  order.  —  Cod.  Epist.  Rodolphi  I. 
No.  xcix.  (Lipsiae,  1806). 

5  Anon.  Cartus.  de  Relig.  Orig.  cap- 
xxviii.  (Martene  Ampliss.  Coll.  VII- 

62). 


XXIII. 


THE  HERESIES. 


Allusion  has  already  been  made  to  the  introduction  of  Mani- 
chaeism  into  Western  Europe  through  Bulgaria  and  Lombardy. 
Notwithstanding  its  stern  and  unrelenting  suppression  wherever  it 
was  discovered  during  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  its  votaries 
multiplied  in  secret.  The  disorders  of  the  clergy,  their  oppression 
of  the  people,  and  their  quarrels  with  the  nobles  over  their  temporal 
possessions  made  them  many  enemies  among  the  laity ;  and  the 
simplicity  of  the  Manichaean  belief,  its  freedom  from  aspirations  for 
temporal  aggrandizement,  and  its  denunciations  of  the  immorality 
and  grasping  avidity  of  the  priesthood,  found  for  it  an  appreciative 
audience  and  made  ready  converts.  Towards  the  close  of  the  twelfth 
century  the  South  of  France  was  discovered  to  be  filled  with  heretics, 
in  whom  the  names  of  Cathari,  Paterins,  Albigenses,  &c.,  concealed 
the  more  odious  appellation  of  Manichaeans. 

It  is  not  our  province  to  trace  out  in  detail  the  bloody  vicissitudes 
of  Dominic’s  Inquisition  and  Simon  de  Montfort’s  crusades.  It  is 
sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  indicate  the  identity  of  the  Albigensian 
belief  with  that  of  the  ancient  sect  which  we  have  seen  to  exercise 
so  powerful  an  influence  in  moulding  and  encouraging  the  asceticism 
of  the  early  church.  The  Dualistic  principle  was  fully  recognized. 
No  necessity  was  regarded  as  justifying  the  use  of  meat,  or  even  of 
eggs  and  cheese,  or  in  fact  of  anything  which  had  its  origin  in  animal 
propagation.  Marriage  was  an  abomination  and  a  mortal  sin,  which 
could  not  be  intensified  by  adultery  or  other  excesses.1 


1  Communis  opinio  Catharorum  est 
quod  matrimonium  carnale  fuit  semper 
mortale  peccatum,  et  quod  non  punietur 
quis  gravius  in  futuro  propter  adulterium 
vel  ineestum  quam  propter  legitimum 
conjugium,  nec  etiam  inter  eos  propter 
hoc  aliquis  gravius  puniretur. — Summa 
F.  Renieri  (Martene  Thesaur.  V. 
1761). 


This  Regnier  describes  himself  as  a 
heresiarch  previous  to  his  conversion, 
and  his  summary  of  the  creed  of  his 
former  associates  may  he  regarded  as 
correct  in  the  main,  though  perhaps 
somewhat  heightened  in  repulsiveness. 
For  further  details  see  ante ,  p.  208. 


368 


THE  HERESIES. 


Engrafted  on  these  errors  were  others  more  practically  dangerous, 
as  they  were  the  inevitable  protest  against  the  all-absorbing  sacerdo¬ 
talism  which  by  this  time  had  become  the  distinguishing  characteristic 
of  the  church.  In  denying  the  existence  of  purgatory,  and  the 
efficacy  of  prayers  for  the  dead  and  the  invocation  of  saints,  a  mortal 
blow  was  aimed  against  the  system  to  which  the  church  owed  its 
firmest  hold  on  the  souls  and  purses  of  the  people.  In  reviving  the 
Hildebrandine  doctrine  that  the  sacraments  were  not  to  be  admin¬ 
istered  by  ecclesiastics  in  a  state  of  sin,  and  in  exaggerating  it  into  an 
incompatibility  between  sin  and  holding  church  preferment,  a  most 
dangerous  and  revolutionary  turn  was  given  to  the  wide-spread  dis¬ 
content  with  which  the  excesses  of  the  clergy  were  regarded.1  So 
sure  a  hold,  indeed,  had  such  views  upon  the  popular  feeling,  that 
we  find  them  reappear  with  every  heresy,  transmitted  with  regular 
filiation  through  the  Waldenses,  the  Wickliffites,  and  the  Hussites,  so 
that  in  every  age,  from  Gregory  to  the  Reformation,  the  measures 
with  which  he  broke  down  the  independence  of  the  local  clergy 
returned  to  plague  their  inventors. 

Yet  with  all  this,  the  heretics  to  outward  appearance  long  con¬ 
tinued  unexceptionably  orthodox.  Industrious  and  sober,  none  were 
more  devoted  to  all  the  observances  of  the  church,  none  more 
regular  at  mass  and  confessional,  more  devout  at  the  altar  or  more 
liberal  at  the  offertory.  Hidden  beneath  this  fair  seeming,  their 
heresy  was  only  the  more  dangerous,  as  it  attracted  converts  with 
unexampled  rapidity.  Priests  gave  up  their  churches  to  join  the 
society,  wives  left  their  husbands,  and  husbands  abandoned  their 
wives;  and  when  questioned  as  to  their  renunciation  of  the  duties 
and  privileges  of  marriage,  they  all  professed  to  be  bound  with  a  vow 
of  chastity.  Yet  if  so  ardent  a  combatant  as  St.  Bernard  is  to  be 
believed,  their  rigorous  asceticism  was  only  a  cloak  for  libertinism. 
It  is  possible  that  the  enthusiastic  self-mortification  of  the  sectaries 
led  them  to  test  their  resolution  by  the  dangerous  experiments  com¬ 
mon  among  the  early  Christians,  and  possibly  also  with  the  same 
deplorable  results.  St.  Bernard  at  least  argues  that  constant  com¬ 
panionship  of  the  sexe3  without  sin  would  require  a  greater  miracle 
than  raising  the  dead,  and  as  these  heretics  could  not  perform  the 
lesser  prodigy,  it  was  reasonable  to  presume  that  they  failed  of  the 


1  Bernardi  Serm.  Ixvi.  in  Cantica  9,  11. 


ORTHODOX  EMBARRASSMENT. 


369 


greater — and  his  conclusion  is  not  unlikely  to  be  true.1  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  virtue  of  these  puritan  sects  rendered  chastity  dangerous  to  the 
orthodox,  for  the  celebrated  Peter  Cantor  relates  as  a  fact  within  his  own 
knowledge,  that  honest  matrons  who  resisted  the  attempts  of  priests  to 
seduce  them  were  accused  of  Manichseism  and  condemned  as  heretics.2 

The  orthodox  polemics,  in  controverting  the  exaggerated  asceticism 
of  these  heretics,  had  a  narrow  and  a  difficult  path  to  tread.  Their 
own  authorities  had  so  exalted  the  praises  of  virgin  purity,  that  it 
was  not  easy  to  meet  the  arguments  of  those  who  merely  carried  out 
the  same  principle  somewhat  further,  in  fearlessly  following  out  the 
premises  to  their  logical  conclusion.3  There  is  extant  a  curious  tract, 
being  a  dialogue  between  a  Catholic  and  a  Paterin,  in  which  the 
latter  of  course  has  the  worst  of  the  disputation,  yet  he  presses  his 
adversary  hard  with  the  texts  which  were  customarily  cited  by  the 
orthodox  advocates  of  clerical  celibacy — “qui  habent  uxores  sint 
tanquam  non  habentes,”  “qui  non  reliquerit  uxorem  et  filios  propter 
me  non  est  me  dignus,”  &c. ;  and  the  Catholic  can  only  elude  their 
force  by  giving  to  them  metaphorical  explanations  very  different  from 
those  which  of  old  had  been  assumed  in  the  canons  requiring  the 
separation  of  man  and  wife  on  ordination.4 


1  Bernardi  Serin,  lxv.  in  Cantica,  $$ 
4,  5. — “  Cum  femina  semper  esse  et  non 
cognoscere  feminam,  nonne  plus  est 
quam  mortuum  suscitare  ?  Quod  minus 
est  non  potes ;  et  quod  majus  est  vis 
credam  tibi?  Quotidie  latus  tuum  ad 
latus  juvenculae  est  in  mensa ;  lectus 
tuus  ad  lectum  ejus  in  camera,  oculi  tui 
ad  illius  oculos  in  colloquio,  manus  tuas 
ad  manus  ipsius  in  opere :  et  continens 
vis  putari  ?  Esto  ut  sis ;  sed  ego  sus- 
picione  non  careo.” 

The  morality  of  the  age  had  evidently 
not  impressed  the  Saint  with  the  convic¬ 
tion  of  human  power  to  resist  temptation. 

2  Pet.  Cantor.  Verb.  Abbreviat.  cap. 
lxxviii. 

5  Bishop  Gerard,  of  Cambrai,  confesses 
this  in  his  refutation  of  the  Artesian 

Manichaeans  in  1025 — “De  quibus  nos 
responsuros  quodam  discretionis  guber- 
naculo  nostri  sermonis  carinam  subire 
oportet,  ne  quasi  inter  duos  scopulos 
naufragium  incurrentes,  occasion  em 
demus  in  alterutrum,  scilicet  aut  omnes 
indiscrete  a  conjugiis  exterrendo,  aut 
omnes  indiscrete  ad  connubia  common- 
endo.” — Concil.  Atrebatens.  ann.  1025 
cap.  x.  (Hartzheim  III.  89). 


When  St.  Bernard,  in  his  fiery  de¬ 
nunciation  of  the  Manichaean  errors, 
exclaimed,  “non  advertant  qualiter 
omni  immunditiae  laxat  habenas  qui 
nuptias  damnat”  (In  Cantica  Serm. 
lxvi.  £3),  he  did  not  pause  to  reflect 
how  severe  a  sentence  he  was  passing 
on  the  saints  of  the  fifth  century  who, 
as  we  have  seen,  would  only  admit 
marriage  to  be  a  pardonable  offence. 

4  Disputat.  inter  Cathol.  et  Paterin. 
c.  ii.  (Martene  Thesaur.  V.  1712-13). 

It  is  somewhat  singular  that  Ma- 
nichaeism  should  have  been  attributed 
to  a  sect  of  heretics  in  Bosnia  who  styled 
themselves  Christians,  and  who  were 
brought  back  to  the  fold  in  1203  by  a 
legate  of  Innocent  III.  It  would  ap¬ 
pear  that,  so  far  from  entertaining  Ma- 
nichaean  doctrines,  neglect  of  ecclesias¬ 
tical  celibacy  was  actually  one  of  their 
erroneous  practices,  for  in  their  pledge 
of  reformation  they  promise  that  sepa¬ 
ration  of  man  and  wife  shall  thenceforth 
be  enforced  “  neque  de  caetero  recipiemus 
aliquem  vel  aliquam  conjugatum,  nisi 
mutuo  consensu,  continentia  promissa, 
ambo  pari  ter  convertantur.” — Batthy- 
ani,  II.  293. 


24 


370 


THE  HERESIES. 


The  stubborn  resistance  of  the  Albigenses  to  the  enormous  odds 
brought  against  them  shows  the  unconquerable  vitality  of  the  anti- 
sacerdotal  spirit  which  was  then  so  widely  diffused  throughout 
Southern  Europe.  In  a  different  shape  it  had  already  manifested 
itself  during  the  first  half  of  the  twelfth  century,  when  Pierre  de 
Bruys  infected  all  the  South  of  France  with  the  heresy  called,  after 
him  and  his  most  noted  follower,  the  Petrobrusian  or  Ilenrician. 
This  was  an  uncompromising  revolt  against  the  whole  system  of 
Homan  Christianity.  It  not  only  abrogated  pscdo-baptism,  and  pro¬ 
mulgated  heretical  notions  respecting  the  Eucharist,  but  it  abolished 
the  visible  symbols  and  ceremonies  which  formed  so  large  a  portion 
of  the  sacerdotal  fabric — churches,  crucifixes,  chanting,  fasting,  gifts 
and  offerings  for  the  dead,  and  even  the  mass.  But  little  is  known 
respecting  the  Petrobrusians,  except  what  can  be  derived  from  the 
refutation  of  their  errors  by  Peter  the  Venerable.  He  says  nothing 
specifically  respecting  their  views  upon  ascetic  celibacy,  but  we  may 
assume  that  this  was  one  of  the  doctrinal  and  practical  corruptions 
which  they  assailed,  from  a  passage  in  which,  describing  their  excesses, 
he  complains  of  the  public  eating  of  flesh  on  Passion  Sunday,  the 
cruel  flagellation  of  priests,  the  imprisonment  of  monks,  and  their 
being  forced  to  marry  by  threats  and  torments.  Even  after  de  Bruys 
was  burned  alive  in  1146,  his  disciple,  Henry,  boldly  carried  on  the 
contest,  and  the  papal  legate,  Cardinal  Alberic,  sent  for  St.  Bernard 
to  assist  him  in  suppressing  the  heretics.  The  latter,  in  a  letter 
written  in  1147  to  the  Count  of  Toulouse,  describes  the  religious 
condition  of  his  territories  as  most  deplorable  in  consequence  of  the 
prevalence  of  the  heresy — the  churches  were  without  congregations, 
the  pastors  without  flocks,  the  people  without  pastors,  the  sacraments 
without  reverence,  the  dying  without  consolation,  and  the  new-born 
without  baptism.  Even  making  allowance  for  some  exaggeration  in 
all  this,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  heresy  received  extensive 
popular  support  and  that  it  was  professed  publicly  without  disguise. 
At  Alby  it  was  dominant,  so  that  when  the  Cardinal-legate  went 
there,  the  people  received  him  in  derision  with  asses  and  drums,  and 
when  he  preached,  scarce  thirty  persons  assembled  to  hear  him ;  but 
two  days  later  St.  Bernard  so  affected  them  with  his  eloquence  that 
they  renounced  their  errors.  He  was  less  successful  at  Vertfeuil 
where  resided  a  hundred  knights-banneret,  who  refused  to  listen  to 
him,  and  whom  he  cursed  in  consequence,  whereof  they  all  perished 
miserably.  Though  St.  Bernard  was  forced  to  return  to  Clairvaux 


ANTI-SACERDOTAL  HERESIES. 


371 


without  accomplishing  the  extirpation  of  the  heresy,  Henry  was 
finally  captured,  and  probably  died  in  prison.1 

In  Britanny,  about  the  same  period,  there  existed  an  obscure  sect 
concerning  whom  little  is  known,  except  that  they  were  probably  a 
branch  of  the  Petrobrusians.  Their  errors  were  nearly  the  same, 
and  the  slender  traces  left  of  them  show  that  their  doctrine  was  a 
protest  against  the  overwhelming  sacerdotalism  of  the  period.  The 
papal  legate,  Hugh,  Archbishop  of  Bouen,  sought  to  convert  them 
by  an  elaborate  denunciation  of  their  tenets,  among  which  he 
enumerates  promiscuous  licentiousness  and  disregard  of  clerical 
celibacy.  Daniel,  he  gravely  assures  them,  symbolizes  virginity ; 
Noah,  continence;  and  Job,  marriage.  Then,  quoting  Ezekiel  xiv. 
13-20,  wherein  Jehovah,  threatening  the  land  with  destruction,  says, 
“  Though  these  three  men,  Noah,  Daniel,  and  Job,  were  in  it,  they 
should  deliver  but  their  own  souls  through  their  righteousness,”  he 
proceeds  triumphantly  to  the  conclusion  that  recantation  alone  can 
save  his  adversaries  from  the  fate  which  their  errors  have  deserved.2 

It  was  probably  another  branch  of  the  same  sect  which  was  dis¬ 
covered  at  Liege  in  1144,  described  as  brought  thither  from  the  south 
and  pervading  all  France  and  the  neighboring  countries.  Its  fol¬ 
lowers  denied  the  efficacy  of  baptism,  of  the  Eucharist  and  of  the 
imposition  of  hands;  they  rejected  not  only  oaths  and  vows,  but 
marriage  itself,  and  denied  that  the  Holy  Spirit  could  be  gained 
except  through  good  works.  These  heretics,  however,  had  not  in 
them  the  spirit  of  martyrdom,  and  speedily  recanted  on  being  dis¬ 
covered.3 

Connected  probably  in  some  way  with  these  movements  of  insub- 

r  r 

ordination,  was  the  career  of  the  singular  heresiarch,  Eon  de  1’Etoile. 
During  one  of  the  epidemics  of  maceration  and  fanaticism  which  form 
such  curious  episodes  in  mediaeval  history,  Eon,  born  of  a  noble 


1  S.  Petri  Venerab.  contra  Petrobru- 
sianos.  —  S.  Bernardi  Epist.  241. — 
Ejusd.  Yit.  Prim.  Lib.  vi.  Part  iii.  c. 
10. — Guill.  de  Podio-Laurent.  c.  i. — 
Alberic.  Trium-Font.  Chron.  ann.  1148. 

2  Hugon.  Rothomag.  contra  Haeret. 
Lib.  iii.  cap.  vi.  This  is  by  no  means 
an  unusual  specimen  of  the  inconse¬ 
quential  character  of  mediaeval  polemics. 
Archbishop  Hugh  was  a  man  of  mark 
among  his  contemporaries,  both  as  a 
theologian  and  as  a  statesman.  It  was 
he  who,  in  1139,  at  the  council  of 

"Winchester,  saved  King  Stephen  from 


excommunication  by  the  English  bish¬ 
ops.  (Willelmi  Malmesb.  Hist.  Novell. 
Lib.  ii.  §  26.)  For  a  somewhat  similar 
specimen  of  fanciful  theology,  the 
reader  may  consult  the  exposition  of 
the  esoteric  meaning  of  the  plagues  of 
Egypt  by  St.  Martin  of  Leon,  a  writer 
of  the  twelfth  century. — S.  Martin. 
Legionens.  Serm.  xv. 

3  Epist.  ad  Lucium  PP.  Epist.  4. 
(Migne’s  Patrologia,  T.  CL  XXIX. 
p.  957.) — Cf.  Martene  Ampliss.  Collect. 
I.  177. 


872 


THE  HERESIES. 


Breton  family,  abandoned  himself  to  the  savage  life  of  a  hermit  in 
the  wilderness.  Drawn  by  a  vision  to  attend  divine  service,  his 
excited  mysticism  caught  the  words  which  ended  the  recitation  of 
the  collect,  “Per  eum  qui  venturus  est  judicare  vivos  et  mortuos;” 
and  the  resemblance  of  “  eum  ”  with  his  own  name  inspired  him  with 
the  revelation  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God.  Men’s  minds  were 
ready  for  any  extravagance,  and  Eon  soon  had  disciples  who  adored 
him  as  a  deity  incarnate.  Nothing  can  be  wilder  than  the  tales 
which  are  related  of  him  by  eye-witnesses — the  aureole  of  glory 
which  surrounded  him,  the  countless  wealth  which  was  at  the  disposal 
of  his  followers,  the  rich  but  unsubstantial  banquets  which  were 
served  at  his  bidding  by  invisible  hands,  the  superhuman  velocity  of 
his  movements  when  eluding  those  who  were  bent  on  his  capture. 
Eon  declared  war  upon  the  churches  which  monopolized  the  wealth 
of  the  people  wdiile  neglecting  the  duties  for  which  they  had  been 
enriched ;  and  he  pillaged  them  of  their  treasures,  which  he  distributed 
lavishly  to  the  poor.  At  last  the  Devil  abandoned  his  protege. 
Eon,  when  his  time  had  come,  was  easily  taken  and  carried  before 
Eugenius  III.  at  the  Council  of  Rouen,  in  1148.  There  he  boldly 
proclaimed  his  mission  and  his  power.  Exhibiting  a  forked  staff 
which  he  carried,  he  declared  that  when  he  held  it  with  the  fork 
upwards,  God  ruled  heaven  and  hell,  and  he  governed  the  earth  ;  but 
that  when  he  reversed  its  position,  then  he  had  at  command  two- 
thirds  of  the  universe,  and  left  Only  the  remaining  third  to  God. 
He  was  pronounced  hopelessly  insane,  but  this  would  not  have  saved 
him  had  not  his  captor,  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  represented  that 
his  life  had  been  pledged  to  him  on  his  surrender.  He  was  there¬ 
fore,  delivered  to  Suger,  Abbot  of  St.  Denis,  to  be  imprisoned,  and 
he  soon  afterwards  died.  Even  this  did  not  shake  the  faith  of  his 
disciples.  Many  of  them,  in  their  fierce  fanaticism,  preferred  the 
stake  to  recantation,  and  numbers  of  them  were  thus  put  to  death 
before  the  heresy  could  be  extinguished.1 


When,  about  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  sudden  death 
of  a  companion  so  impressed  Peter  Waldo  of  Lyons  that  he  uis- 


1  Guillielm.  de  Newburgh,  Lib.  I. 
cap.  19. — Ottonis  Frising.  de  Gest. 
Frid.  I.  Lib.  i.  cap.  liv.,  lv. — Sigeberti 
Chron.  Continuat.  Gemblac.  ann.  1146. 
— Ejusdem  Continuat.  Proemonstrat. 
ann.  1148. — Roberti  de  Monte.  Chron. 


ann.  1148. — The  detailed  account  given 
by  William  of  Newburgh  he  professes 
to  have  gathered  from  some  of  Eon’s 
followers  performing  penitential  pil¬ 
grimages  after  the  death  of  the  heresi- 
arch. 


ANTISACERDOTALISM — THE  WALDENSES.  373 


tributed  his  fortune  among  the  poor,  and  devoted  himself  to  preaching 
the  supereminent  merits  of  poverty,  nothing  was  further  from  his 
thoughts  than  the  founding  of  a  new  heresy.  Ardent  disciples 
gathered  around  him,  disseminating  his  views,  which  spread  with 
rapidity;  but  their  intention  was  to  establish  a  society  within  the 
church,  and  they  applied,  between  1181  and  1185,  to  Lucius  III. 
for  the  papal  authorization.  Lucius,  however,  took  exception  to 
their  going  barefoot,  to  their  neglect  of  the  tonsure,  and  to  their 
retaining  the  society  of  women.  They  were  stubborn,  and  he  con¬ 
demned  them  as  heretics.1  The  enthusiasm  which  the  church  might 
have  turned  to  so  much  account,  as  it  subsequently  did  that  of  the 
Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  was  thus  diverted  to  unorthodox  chan¬ 
nels,  and  speedily  arrayed  itself  in  opposition.  The  character  of  the 
revolt  is  shown  in  a  passage  of  the  Nobla  Leyczon ,  written  probably 
not  long  after  this  time,  which  declares  that  all  the  popes,  cardinals, 
bishops,  and  abbots  together  cannot  obtain  pardon  for  a  single  mortal 
sin;  thus  leading  directly  to  the  conclusion  that  no  intercessor  could 
be  of  avail  between  God  and  man — 

Ma  yo  aus  o  dire,  car  se  troba  en  ver, 

Que  tuit  li  papa  que  foron  de  Silvestre  entro  en  aquest, 

Et  tuit  li  cardinal  et  tuit  li  vesque  e  tuit  li  aba, 

Tuit  aquisti  ensemp  non  han  tan  de  potesta, 

Que  ilb  poissan  perdonar  un  sol  pecca  mortal. 

Solament  Dio  perdona,  que  autre  non  bo  po  far.2 

Still,  they  did  not  even  yet  consider  themselves  as  separated  from 
the  church,  for  they  consented  to  submit  their  peculiar  doctrines  to 
the  chances  of  a  disputation,  presided  over  by  an  orthodox  priest. 
Of  course,  the  decision  went  against  them,  and  a  portion  of  the 
“Poor  Men  of  Lyons”  submitted  to  the  result.  The  remainder, 
however,  maintained  their  faith  as  rigidly  as  ever.  From  Bernard 


1  Conrad.  Urspergens.  ann.  1212. — 
“  Hoc  quoque  probrosum  in  eis  vide- 
batur,  qucd  viri  et  mulieres  simul 
ambulabant  in  via,  et  plerumque  si¬ 
mul  manebant  in  una  domo,  ut  de  eis 
diceretur,  quod  quandoque  simul  in 
lectulis  accubabant.”  The  follies  of 
the  early  Christians  were  doubtless 
imitated  by  the  new  sectaries.  As 
early  as  1197  we  find  them  denounced 
as  heretics,  under  the  various  names  of 
"Waldenses,  Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  and 
Sabatati,  and  condemned  to  the  stake 


by  the  council  of  Girona,  in  Aragon. 
— Aguirre  Y.  103. 

2  La  Nobla  Leyczon,  408-13. — 
There  has  been  considerable  discussion 
as  to  the  date  of  this  work.  It  appears 
to  me  to  bear  the  mark  of  more  than 
one  period,  or,  at  least,  of  successive 
recensions.  Internal  evidence  shows 
the  beginning  to  have  been  written 
about  the  year  1100,  while  the  later 
portion,  commencing  about  1.  345, 
seems  to  have  been  composed  subse¬ 
quently  to  the  persecutions  of  the  early 
part  of  the  13th  century. 


374 


THE  HERESIES. 


cle  Font-Cauld,  who  records  this  disputation,  and  from  Alain  de 
ITsle,  another  contemporary,  who  wrote  in  confutation  of  their 
errors,  we  have  a  minute  account  of  their  peculiarities  of  belief. 
Their  principal  heresy  was  a  strict  adherence  to  the  Hildebrandine 
doctrine  that  neither  reverence  nor  obedience  was  due  to  priests  in 
mortal  sin,  whose  ministrations  to  the  living  and  whose  prayers  for 
the  dead  were  equally  to  be  despised.  In  the  existing  condition  of 
sacerdotal  morals,  this  necessarily  destroyed  all  reverence  for  the 
church  at  large,  and  Bernard  and  Alain  had  no  hesitation  in  proving 
it  to  be  most  dangerously  heterodox.  Their  recurrence  to  Scripture, 
moreover,  as  the  sole  foundation  of  Christian  belief,  with  the  claim 
of  private  interpretation,  was  necessarily  destructive  to  all  the  forms 
of  sacerdotalism,  and  led  them  to  entertain  many  other  heretical 
tenets.  They  admitted  no  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity. 
Every  member  of  the  sect,  male  or  female,  was  a  priest,  entitled  to 
preach  and  to  hear  confessions.  Purgatory  was  denied,  and  the 
power  of  absolution  derided.  Lying  and  swearing  were  mortal 
sins,  and  homicide  was  not  excusable  under  any  circumstances.1 
Yet  naturally  they  did  not  repudiate  the  ascetic  principles  of  the 
church,  and  they  regarded  continence  as  counselled,  though  not 
commanded,  by  the  Christian  dispensation — 

La  ley  velha  maudi  lo  ventre  que  fruc  non  a  porta, 

Ma  la  novella  conselha  gardar  vergeneta.2 

Though  marriage  is  praised  and  its  purity  is  to  be  preserved — 

Gardes  ferm  lo  matrimoni,  aquel  noble  convent,3 

thus  showing  their  disapproval  of  the  Manichman  doctrines  of  the 
Cathari  and  Paterins. 

Independence  such  as  this  could  only  result  in  open  revolt  against 
sacerdotalism  in  general,  and  it  shortly  came.  The  Waldensian 
exaltation  of  poverty  was  grateful  to  the  nobles,  who  were  eager  to 
grasp  the  possessions  of  the  church;  its  condemnation  of  the  pride 
and  immorality  of  the  clergy  secured  for  its  sectaries  the  goodwill  of 
the  people,  who  everywhere  suffered  from  the  oppression  and  vices 
of  their  pastors.  Under  such  protection  the  sect  multiplied  with 
incredible  rapidity,  not  only  throughout  France,  but  in  Italy  and 
Germany.  Enveloped,  with  the  Albigenses,  in  merciless  perse- 


1  Bernardi  Fontis  Calidi  Lib.  contra 
'Waldenses. — Alani  de  Insulis  contra 
Hgeret.  Lib.  n. 


1  La  Nobla  Leyczon,  242-3. 
3  Ibid.,  88. 


THE  WALDENSES  —  THE  FRATICELLI. 


375 


cution,  they  endured  with  fortitude  the  extremity  of  martyrdom. 
The  Germans  and  Italians  sought  refuge  in  the  recesses  of  the  Alpine 
valleys,  and  in  the  Marches  of  Brandenburg  and  Bohemia,  where 
they  seem  to  have  adopted  the  custom  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  and 
where  in  time  they  merged  with  the  churches  of  the  Orthodox  Breth¬ 
ren.1  Some  feeble  remnants  also  managed  to  maintain  an  obscure 
existence  in  Provence,  but  their  tacit  revolt  could  not  be  forgotten 
or  forgiven,  and  at  intervals  they  were  exposed  to  pitiless  attempts 
at  extermination.  These  are  well  known,  and  the  names  of  Cabri- 
eres  and  Merindol  have  acquired  a  sinister  notoriety  which  renders 
further  allusion  to  the  Waldenses  unnecessary,  except  to  mention 
that  in  1538  they  formally  merged  themselves  with  the  German 
reformers  by  an  agreement  of  which  the  8th  and  9th  articles  declare 
that  marriage  is  permissible,  without  exception  of  position,  to  all 
who  have  not  received  the  gift  of  continence.2 

The  antisacerdotal  spirit,  however,  did  not  develop  itself  altogether 
in  opposition  to  the  church.  Devout  and  earnest  men  there  were, 
who  recognized  the  evil  resulting  from  the  overgrown  power  and 
wealth  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment,  without  shaking  off  their 
reverence  for  its  doctrine  and  its  visible  head,  and  the  authorities  at 
length  saw  in  these  men  the  effective  means  of  combating  the  enemy. 
In  thus  availing  themselves  of  one  branch  of  the  reformers  to  destroy 
the  other  and  more  radical  portion,  the  chiefs  of  the  hierarchy  were 
adopting  an  expedient  effective  for  the  present,  yet  fraught  with 
danger  for  the  future.  The  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  were  useful 
beyond  expectation.  They  restored  to  the  church  much  of  the  pop¬ 
ular  veneration  which  had  become  almost  hopelessly  alienated  from 
it,  and  their  wonderfully  rapid  extension  throughout  Europe  shows 
how  universally  the  people  had  felt  the  want  of  a  religion  which 
should  fitly  represent  the  humility,  the  poverty,  the  charity  of  Christ. 
Yet  when  Innocent  III.  hesitated  long  to  sanction  the  mendicant 
orders,  he  by  no  means  showed  the  want  of  sagacity  which  has  been 
so  generally  asserted  by  superficial  historians;  rather,  like  Lucius 
III.  with  the  Waldenses,  his  far-seeing  eye  took  in  the  possible 
dangers  of  that  fierce  ascetic  enthusiasm  which  might  at  any  moment 
break  the  bonds  of  earthly  obedience,  when  its  exalted  convictions 
should  declare  that  obedience  to  man  was  revolt  against  God. 

1  Camerarii  Hist,  de  Fratrum  Orthodox.  Ecclesiis  pp.  104-7,  116-7. 

2  Pluquet,  Dictionnaire  des  Heresies,  art.  Vaudois. 


376 


THE  HERESIES. 


Before  the  century  was  out,  the  result  was  apparent.  When  St. 
Francis  erected  poverty  into  an  object  of  adoration,  attaching  to  it 
an  importance  as  insane  as  that  attributed  to  virginity  by  the  early 
ascetics,  he  at  once  placed  himself  in  opposition  to  the  whole  system 
of  the  church  establishment,  though  his  exquisite  humility  and  ex¬ 
haustless  charity  might  disguise  the  dangerous  tendency  of  his  doc¬ 
trines.1  As  his  order  grew  in  numbers  and  wealth  with  unexampled 
rapidity,  it  necessarily  declined  from  the  superhuman  height  of  self- 
abnegation  of  which  its  founder  was  the  model.  Already,  in  1261, 
the  council  of  Mainz  can  hardly  find  words  severe  enough  to  con¬ 
demn  the  mendicant  friars  who  wandered  around  selling  indulgences 
and  squandering  their  unhallowed  gains  in  the  vilest  excesses.  One 
of  these  lights  of  the  order  publicly  preached,  in  the  horse-market 
of  Strassburg,  the  doctrine  that  a  nun  who  surrendered  her  virtue 
to  a  monk  was  less  guilty  than  if  she  had  an  intrigue  with  a  layman.2 
This  falling  from  grace  naturally  produced  dissatisfaction  among  those 
impracticable  spirits  who  still  regarded  St.  Francis  as  their  exemplar 
as  well  as  their  patron.  The  breach  gradually  widened,  until  at 
length  two  parties  were  formed  in  the  order.  The  ascetics  finally 
separated  themselves  from  their  corrupted  brethren,  and  under  the 
name  of  Begghards  in  Germany,  Frerots  in  France,  and  Fraticelli 
in  Southern  Europe,  assumed  the  position  of  being  the  only  true 
church.  Their  excommunication  at  the  council  of  Vienne,  in  1311, 
in  no  wise  disconcerted  them.  The  long-forgotten  doctrines  of 
Arnold  of  Brescia  were  revived  and  intensified.  Poverty  was  an 
absolute  necessity  to  true  Christianity;  the  holding  of  property  was 
a  heresy,  and  the  Roman  church  was  consequently  heretic.  Rome, 
indeed,  was  openly  denounced  as  the  modern  Babylon. 


1  The  heresy  of  one  age  becomes 
the  orthodoxy  of  another.  The  views 
of  St.  Francis,  when  promulgated  in 
the  fifth  century  by  the  Timotheists, 
were  stigmatized  as  heretical.  —  v. 
Harduin.  Concil.  I.  525. 

2  Concil.  Mogunt.  ann.  1261  can. 
xlviii.  (Hartzheim  III.  612,  615). 

The  decline  of  the  order  from  the 
asceticism  of  its  founder  afforded  a 
fair  mark  for  satire — 

Seyn  that  they  folwen 
Fully  Fraunceyses  rewle, 

That  in  cotinge  of  his  cope 
Is  more  cloth  y-folden 
Than  was  in  Fraunceis  froc 
When  he  hem  first  made. 


And  yet  under  that  cope 
A  cote  hathe  he  furred 
With  foyns  or  with  fichewes 
Other  fyn  bevere, 

And  that  is  cutted  to  the  kne, 

And  queyntly  y-botened, 

Lest  any  spiritual  man 
Aspie  that  gyle. 

Fraunceys  bad  his  brethern 
Bar-fot  to  wenden ; 

Now  han  they  buckled  6hone, 

For  blenyng  of  her  heles, 

And  hosen  in  hard  weder 
Y-hamled  by  the  ancle, 

And  spicerie  sprad  in  her  purs 
To  parten  where  hem  luste. 

Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman  1.  579-600. 


THE  FRATICELLI. 


377 


While  thus  carrying  out  to  its  necessary  consequences  the  sanctifi¬ 
cation  of  poverty,  which  was  the  essence  of  Franciscanism,  they 
were  equally  logical  with  regard  to  the  doctrines  of  ascetic  purity 
which  had  been  so  earnestly  enforced  by  the  church.  Their  admira¬ 
tion  of  virginity  thus  trenched  closely  on  Manichseism,  and  in  com¬ 
bating  their  errors  the  church  was  scarcely  able  to  avoid  condemning 
both  the  vow  of  poverty  and  that  of  celibacy,  which  were  the  corner¬ 
stones  of  the  monastic  theory.1  Active  persecution,  of  course, 
aroused  equally  active  resistance.  The  Fraticelli  espoused  the  cause 
of  the  Emperor  Louis  of  Bavaria,  in  his  long  and  disastrous  quarrel 
with  John  XXII.,  whom  they  did  not  hesitate  to  excommunicate. 
Exterminated  after  a  prolonged  and  desperate  struggle,  their  mem¬ 
ory  was  blackened  with  the  slanders  disseminated  by  a  priesthood 
incapable  of  emulating  their  ascetic  virtues ;  and  principal  among 
these  slanders  was  the  accusation  which  we  find  repeated  on  all  occa¬ 
sions  when  an  adversary  is  to  be  rendered  odious — that  of  promiscu¬ 
ous  and  brutal  licentiousness.  No  authentic  facts,  however,  can  be 
found  to  substantiate  it.2 

The  Fraticelli  form  a  connecting  link  in  the  generations  of  heresy. 
Their  errors,  as  taught  by  one  of  their  most  noted  leaders,  Walter 
Lolhard,  wTho  was  burned  at  Cologne  in  1822,  had  a  tinge  of  the 
Manichseism  of  the  Albigenses,  for  Satan  was  to  them  an  object  of 
compassion  and  veneration.3  Their  prevalence  in  Bohemia  prepared 


1  Thus,  a  council  held  at  Cologne  in 
1306,  in  denouncing  the  mendicancy 
of  the  Begghards,  quotes  Gen.  III.  18 : 
“In  sudore  vultus  tui  vesceris  pane 
tuo,”  and  proceeds:  “Quod  ad  fortes 
et  sui  compotes  moraliter  intelligitur 
esse  dictum:  et  tales  in  ocio  victum 
vendicantes,  eleemosynas  rapiunt, 
quae  infirmis  et  debilibus  fuerant  pau- 
peribus  ministrandae.  ”  And  in  ob¬ 
jecting  to  their  views  of  celibacy, 
“Ajunt  etiam :  Nisi  mulier  virgini- 
tatem  in  matrimonio  deperditam  doleat 
et  dolendo  deploret,  salvari  non  potest : 
quasi  matrimonium  sit  peccatum,  cum 
tamen  ipsum  ante  peccatum  in  loco 
sancto  a  sanctorum  sanctissimo  fuerit 
institutum:  quae  virginitas  in  fcetum 
sobolis  compensatur,  per  quam  humana 
natura  stabilitate  perdurat,”  which  con¬ 
trasts  strangely  with  the  teachings 
quoted  above  from  “  Hali  Meidenhad.” 
Great  stress,  moreover,  is  laid  upon  the 
indissolubility  of  the  marriage  vow  and 
the  wickedness  of  separating  husband 
and  wife  : — “  Quomodo  spiritu  Dei 


agantur  qui  contra  spiritum  Dei 
agunt,  prohibentis  virum  ab  uxore, 
et  e  converso  sine  causa  dimitti?” 
— Concil.  Coloniens.  ann.  1306  cap.  i., 
ii.  (Hartzheim  IY.  100-101).  The 
good  fathers  of  the  council  were  dis¬ 
creetly  blind  to  the  antagonism  of 
their  teachings  to  the  received  doc¬ 
trines  and  practices  of  the  church. 

2  A  collection  of  documents  illus¬ 
trating  the  history  of  this  singular 
and  powerful  sect  will  he  found  in 
Baluze  and  Mansi  III.  206  et  seq. 

How  persistent  and  profound  was  the 
conviction  which  created  the  heresy  is 
shown  by  its  prolonged  existence. 
Even  as  late  as  1421  Martin  Y.  found 
it  necessary  to  issue  a  Bull  denouncing 
it  (Raynaldi  Annal.  ann.  1421  No.  4); 
and  in  Germany  the  council  of  Wurz¬ 
burg  in  1446  revived  the  old  denunci¬ 
ations  against  the  Begghards  and 
Beguines  (Hartzheim  Y.  336). 

3  Their  customary  salutation  and 
password  was  an  invocation  of  the 


378 


THE  HEKESIES. 


the  ground  for  IIuss,  and  left  deep  traces  in  the  popular  mind  which 
were  not  eradicated  in  the  eighteenth  century ;  while  their  proselytes 
in  England  served  to  swell  the  party  of  Wickliffe,  and  eventually 
gave  to  it  their  name,  though  their  peculiar  doctrines  bore  little 
resemblance  to  his.1  Antisacerdotalism,  however,  was  the  common 
tie,  and  in  this  Luther,  Zwingli,  and  Knox  were  the  legitimate  suc¬ 
cessors  of  Dolcino  and  Michael  di  Cesena. 

Another  precursor  of  Wickliffe  and  Huss  was  John  of  Pirna,  who 
in  1341  taught  the  most  revolutionary  doctrines.  According  to  him, 
the  pope  was  Antichrist  and  Rome  was  the  whore  of  Babylon  and 
the  church  of  Satan.  The  Silesians  listened  eagerly  to  his  denunci¬ 
ations  of  the  clergy,  and  the  citizens  of  Breslau,  with  their  magis¬ 
trates,  openly  embraced  his  heresy.  When  the  Inquisitor,  John  of 
Schweidnitz,  was  sent  thither  by  the  Holy  Office  of  Cracow,  the 
people  rose  in  defence  of  their  leader  and  put  the  Inquisitor  to  death. 
John  of  Pirna  appears  to  have  maintained  his  position,  but  after  his 
death  the  church  enjoyed  the  pious  satisfaction  of  exhuming  his  body, 
burning  it,  and  scattering  the  ashes  to  the  winds.2  It  was  easier  to 
do  this  than  to  destroy  the  leaven  which  was  working  everywhere  in 
men’s  minds.  No  sooner  were  its  manifestations  repressed  in  one 
quarter  than  they  displayed  themselves  in  another. 

In  the  ineradicable  corruption  of  the  church,  indeed,  every  effort 
to  purify  it  could  only  lead  to  a  heresy.  Except  on  the  delicate 
point  of  Transsubstantiation,  Wickliffe  proposed  no  doctrinal  inno¬ 
vation,  but  he  keenly  felt  and  energetically  sought  to  repress  the 
disorders  which  had  brought  the  church  into  disrepute.  His  scheme 
swept  away  bishop,  cardinal,  and  pope,  the  priesthood  being  the  cul¬ 
minating  point  in  his  system  of  ecclesiastical  polity.  The  tempo¬ 
ralities  which  weighed  down  the  spiritual  aspirations  of  the  church 
were  to  be  abandoned,  and  with  them  the  train  of  abuses  by  which 
the  worldly  ambition  of  churchmen  was  sustained  —  indulgences, 
simony,  image-worship,  the  power  of  excommunication,  and  the 
thousand  other  arts  by  which  the  authority  to  bind  and  to  loose  had 
been  converted  into  broad  acres  or  current  coin  of  the  realm.  In 
all  this  he  was  to  a  great  extent  a  disciple  of  the  Fraticelli,  but  his 


fallen  angel — “  Salutet  te  injuriam 
passus.” —  “May  the  wronged  one 
preserve  thee!”  —  Trithem.  Chron. 
liirsaug.  ann.  1315. 

1  Trithem.  loc.  cit. — Eaynaldi  An- 


nal.  ann.  1318  No.  44. — Hartzheim 
Concil.  German.  IY.  630. 

2  Krasinski,  Keformation  in  Poland, 
I.  55-56. 


WICKLIFFE. 


379 


more  practical  mind  escaped  their  leading  error,  and  he  denounced 
as  an  intolerable  abuse  the  beggary  of  the  mendicant  friars.  Indeed, 
the  monastic  orders  in  general  were  the  objects  of  his  special  aver¬ 
sion,  as  having  no  justification  in  the  precepts  of  Christ,  and  his 
repeated  attacks  upon  them  have  a  bitterness  which  shows  not  only 
his  deep-rooted  aversion,  but  his  sense  of  their  importance  as  a  bul¬ 
wark  of  the  abuses  which  he  assailed.1  He  reduced  holy  orders  to 
two — the  priesthood  and  diaconate — but  he  maintained  the  indelible 
character  of  ordination  as  separating  the  recipient  from  his  fellows, 
and  he  urged  that  all  ministers  of  Christ  should  live  in  saintly  pov¬ 
erty.2  All  this  was  unreasonable  enough  in  a  perverse  and  stiff¬ 
necked  generation,  but  his  unpardonable  error  was  his  revival  of  the 
doctrine  of  Gregory  VII.  regarding  the  ministrations  of  unfaithful 
priests,  which  he  carried  out  resolutely  to  its  logical  consequences.3 
According  to  him,  a  wicked  priest  could  not  perform  his  sacred 
functions,  and  forfeited  both  his  spiritualities  and  temporalities,  of 
which  laymen  were  justified  in  depriving  him.  Nay  more,  priest 
and  bishop  were  no  longer  priest  or  bishop  if  they  lived  in  mortal 
sin,  and  his  definition  of  mortal  sin  was  such  as  to  render  it  scarce 
possible  for  any  one  to  escape.4 

What  his  opinions  were  on  the  subject  of  clerical  celibacy  was  a 
mooted  point  even  shortly  after  his  death.  Thomas  of  Walden,  the 
confessor  of  Henry  V.,  in  his  Doctrinale  Fidei ,  written  to  confute 


1  Inter  omnia  monatra  quae  unquam 
intraverunt  ecclesiam,  monstrum  ho- 
rum  fratrum  est  seductiviu3,  infunda- 
bilius,  et  a  veritate  ac  a  charitate 
distantius. — Univ.  Oxon.  Litt.  de 
Error.  Wicklif.  Art.  103  (Wilkins 
III.  344). 

2  Trialogi  Lib.  iv.  cap.  15. 

3  A  Wickliffite  tract  (“De  Officio 
Pastorali,”  published  by  Prof.  Lechler, 
Leipzig,  1863)  takes  strong  ground  on 
this  point.  Speaking  of  unchaste  priests, 
it  says  (P.  I.  cap.  viii.  pp.  16-17), 

“  Talis  sic  notorie  sustentans  curatum 
dat  imprudcnter  elemosinam  contra 
Christum  ....  periculosum  peccatum 
est  crimini  consentire;  sed  sic  faciunt 
qui  taliter  curato  in  temporalibus  sub- 
ministrant.”  And  again  (P.  I.  cap. 
xvii.),  “  Subditi  enim  non  debent  au- 
dire  missam  talium  sacerdotum,  et  per 
consequens  non  debent  dare  sibi  oblaci- 
ones  vel  decimas,  ne  videantur  consen- 
cientes  crimini  sic  notorio  in  curatis.” 


4  Si  Deus  est,  domini  temporales 
possunt  legitime  ac  meritorie  auferre 
bona  fortune  ab  ecclesia  delinquente. 
— Conclus.  Magist.  Johan.  Wycliff. 
Art.  vi.  (Wilkins  III.  123). 

Licet  regibus  auferre  temporalia  a 
viris  ecclesiasticis  ipsis  abutentibus 
habitualiter.  Ibid.  Art.  xvii. 

So  in  the  proceedings  conducted  by 
Courtenay,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
against  Wickliffe  in  1382,  among  the 
articles  presented  as  extracted  from 
his  writings  were — 

Art.  4.  Quod  si  episcopus  vel  sa- 
cerdos  existat  in  peccato  mortali,  non 
ordinat,  consecrat  nec  baptizat. 

Art.  16.  Quod  nullus  est  dominus 
civilis,  nullus  est  episcopus,  nullus 
est  prselatus  dum  est  in  peccato  mor¬ 
tali  (Wilkins  III.  157). 

Even  “  verbum  otiosum”  and  “  ira 
quantumlibet  levis”  were  denounced 
bv  him  as  mortal  sins  according  to  the 
University  of  Oxford. — Litt.  de  Error. 
Art.  210,  211  (Wilkins  III.  347). 


380 


THE  HERESIES. 


the  errors  of  Lollardry,  declares  that  he  could  not  persuade  himself 
that  the  Wickliffites  derived  from  their  leader  their  opposition  to 
celibacy  until  he  had  recently  read  in  Wickliffe’s  Sermon  on  Mid¬ 
summer  Eve  the  passage  which  says  that  “prestis  ben  dowid  and 
wyflees  agens  Goddis  autorite.  .  .  .  And  this  is  the  caste  of  the 
fend  to  kyndle  fir  in  heerdis”  &C.,1  and  Mr.  Arnold,  the  latest  editor 
of  Wickliffe,  seems  to  entertain  no  doubt  as  to  the  authenticity  of 
the  text,  or  of  the  views  of  the  reformer  as  expressed  there,  and 
in  other  passages  of  tracts  attributed  to  him.2  Yet  had  Wickliffe 
taught  this  doctrine  it  would  have  been  as  widely  known  as  his  other 
errors,  it  would  have  been  condemned  in  the  repeated  proceedings 
taken  against  him  and  his  teachings,  and  it  would  not  have  been  left 
for  Thomas  of  Walden  to  discover  it  in  one  of  the  numerous  sermons 
which  passed  from  hand  to  hand  as  the  works  of  the  heresiarch. 
Wickliffe  was  too  earnest  and  sincere  in  his  convictions  to  leave  any¬ 
one  in  doubt  as  to  his  belief  on  any  point  that  he  thought  worth 
discussion. 

What  his  views  were  on  this  subject  can  perhaps  best  be  sought  in 
the  most  mature  of  his  works,  the  Trialogus,  the  authenticity  of 
which  I  believe  is  indisputable.  No  one  can  read  the  chapters  on 
Sensuality  and  Chastity  without  seeing  that  the  whole  line  of  argu¬ 
ment  is  directed  towards  proving  the  superiority  of  virginity  over 
marriage,  even  to  the  fanciful  etymology  of  “  coelibatus  from  the 
state  of  the  “beati  in  cselo;”  while  in  the  chapter  on  the  riches  of 
the  clergy,  they  are  regarded  as  virgins  betrothed  to  Christ,  and  the 
vow  of  chastity  -which  they  take  is  likened  to  their  similar  vow  of 
poverty,  and  not  to  be  infringed.3  Wickliffe’s  austerity,  in  fact,  was 
deeply  tinged  with  asceticism,  and  in  aiming  to  restore  the  primitive 


1  Arnold’s  Select  English  "Works  of 
John  Wyclif,  Yol.  II.  p.  v. — Vol.  I. 
p.  364. 

2  “God  ordeyned  prestis  in  the  olde 
lawe  to  have  wyves,  and  nevere  forbede 
it  in  the  newe  lawe,  neither  bi  Crist  ne 
bi  his  apostlis,  but  rathere  aprovede  it. 
But  now,  bi  ypocrisie  of  fendis  and  fals 
men,  manye  binden  hem  to  presthod 
and  chastite,  and  forsaken  wifis  bi 
Goddis  lawe,  and  schenden  mavdenes 
and  wifis  and  fallen  foulest  of  alle.” — 
Of  Weddid  Men  and  Wifis,  cap.  i. 

(Arnold’s  Wyclif,  III.  190;  also  in 
Vaughan’s  Tracts  of  John  de  Wyck- 
liffe  p.  58). — See  also  The  Seven  Deadly 


Sins,  cap.  xxx.  (Arnold,  Yol.  III.  p. 
163). 

In  the  tract  “  De  Officio  Pastorale,” 
alluded  to  above,  there  is  a  similar 
passage — “conjugium  secundum  legem 
Christi  eis  licitum  odiunt  ut  venenum, 
et  seculare  dominium  eis  a  Christo 
prohibitum  nimis  avide  amplexantur” 
(P.  II.  cap.  xi.  pp.  50-51). 

It  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  at  this 
period  no  one  assumed  that  clerical 
celibacy  had  been  ordained  of  Christ 
or  the  Apostles. 

5  Trialogi  Lib.  in.  c.  22,  23;  Lib.  iv. 
16  (Ed.  Lechler,  Oxford  1869).— Cf. 
Apology  for  Lollard  Doctrines,  p.  38 
(Ed.  Camden  Soc.). 


THE  LOLLARDS. 


381 


simplicity  of  the  church,  he  had  no  thought  of  relegating  its  ministers 
to  the  carnalities  of  family  life,  which  would  render  impossible  the 
Apostolic  poverty  that  was  his  ideal.  Even  the  laity,  in  his  scheme, 
were  to  be  so  rendered  superior  to  the  lusts  of  the  flesh  that  he  pro¬ 
nounced  those  who  married  from  any  other  motive  than  that  of 
having  offspring  to  be  not  truly  married.1  He  evidently  had  no 
intention  to  interfere  with  clerical  celibacy,  and  the  passages  which 
have  been  cited  to  the  contrary  may  safely  be  regarded  as  suppositi¬ 
tious.  Either  the  writings  in  which  they  occur  have  been  erroneously 
ascribed  to  Wickliffe,  or  the  passages  themselves  have  been  interpo¬ 
lated  by  too  zealous  disciples,  eager  to  procure  the  authority  of  the 
master  for  the  later  development  of  doctrines  that  were  not  his — a 
pious  fraud  too  common  in  all  ages  of  the  church  to  excite  surprise. 

It  is  easier  to  start  a  movement  than  to  restrain  it.  Wickliffe 
might  deny  the  authority  of  tradition,  and  yet  preserve  his  respect 
for  the  tradition  of  celibacy,  but  his  followers  could  not  observe  the 
distinction.  They  could  see,  if  he  could  not,  that  the  structure  of 
sacerdotalism,  to  the  overthrow  of  which  he  devoted  himself,  could 
not  be  destroyed  without  abrogating  the  rule  which  separated  the 
priest  from  his  fellow-men,  and  which  severed  all  other  ties  in  bind¬ 
ing  him  to  the  church.  In  1394,  only  ten  years  after  Wickliffe’s 
death,  the  Lollards,  by  that  time  a  powerful  party,  with  strong 
revolutionary  tendencies,  presented  to  Parliament  a  petition  for  the 
thorough  reformation  of  the  church,  containing  twelve  conclusions 
indicating  the  points  on  which  they  desired  change.  Of  these,  the 
third  denounced  the  rule  of  celibacy  as  the  cause  of  the  worst  dis¬ 
orders,  and  argued  the  necessity  of  its  abrogation ;  while  the  eleventh 
attacked  the  vows  of  nuns  as  even  more  injurious,  and  demanded 
permission  for  their  marriage  with  but  scanty  show  of  respect.2 
This  became  the  received  doctrine  of  the  sect,  for  in  a  declaration 
made  in  1400  by  Arundel,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  concerning 
the  Lollard  heresies,  we  find  enumerated  the  belief  that  those  in  holy 
orders  could  take  to  themselves  wives  without  sin,  and  that  monks 
and  nuns  were  at  liberty  to  abandon  their  profession,  and  marry  at 
pleasure.3 

The  fierce  persecutions  of  Henry  V.,  to  repress  what  he  rightly 


1  "Wilkins  III.  229.— Trialogi  Lib.  IY.  c.  20. 

2  Conclusiones  Lollardoram  (Wilkins  III.  221-3). 

3  Wilkins  III.  248. 


382 


THE  HERESIES. 


considered  as  a  formidable  source  of  civil  rebellion  as  well  as  heresy, 
succeeded  in  depriving  the  sect  of  political  power ;  yet  its  religious 
doctrines  still  continued  to  exist  among  the  people,  and  even  some¬ 
times  obtained  public  expression.1  They  unquestionably  tended 
strongly  to  shake  the  popular  reverence  for  Rome,  and  had  no  little 
influence  in  paving  the  way  for  the  revolt  of  the  sixteenth  century. 

John  IIuss  was  rather  a  reformer  than  a  heresiarch.  Admirer 
though  he  was  of  Wickliffe,  even  to  the  point  of  wishing  to  risk 
damnation  with  him,2  he  avoided  the  doctrinal  errors  of  the  English¬ 
man  on  the  subject  of  the  Eucharist.  Yet  his  predestinarian  views 
were  unorthodox,  and  he  shared  in  some  degree  Wickliffe’s  Gregorian 
ideas  as  to  the  effect  of  mortal  sin  in  divesting  the  priesthood  of  all 
claim  to  sacredness  or  respect.  According  to  his  enemies,  he  asserted 
that  no  one  could  be  the  vicar  of  Christ  or  of  Peter  unless  he  were 
an  humble  imitator  of  the  virtues  of  him  whom  he  claimed  to  rep¬ 
resent  ;  and  a  pope  who  was  given  to  avarice  was  only  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  Judas  Iscariot.3  His  friend,  Jerome  of  Prague,  maintained 
with  his  latest  breath  that  Huss  was  thoroughly  orthodox,  and  was 


1  In  1426,  ten  years  after  the  execu¬ 
tion  of  Lord  Cobham,  a  Franciscan 
named  Thomas  Richmond  was 
brought  before  the  council  of  York  for 
publicly  preaching  the  high  Wickliffite 
doctrine  “  Sacerdos  in  peccato  mortali 
lapsus,  non  est  sacerdos.  Item  quod 
ecclesia  nolente  vel  non  puniente  forni- 
carios,  licitum  est  saecularibus  eosdem 
pcena  carceris  castigare,  et  ad  hoc  as- 
tringuntur  vinculo  charitatis  "  (Wil¬ 
kins  III.  488).  This  practical  appli¬ 
cation  of  the  Hildebrandine  principle 
did  not  suit  the  church  of  the  fifteenth 
century.  It  was  pronounced  heretical, 
and  Friar  Thomas  was  forced  to  recant. 

Equally  offensive  to  the  memory  of 
Gregory  was  the  decision  of  the  Sor- 
bonne  in  1486,  condemning  as  hereti¬ 
cal  the  propositions  of  the  puritan 
Bishop  of  Meaux — “3.  Un  pretre  for- 
nicateur  ne  doit  pas  dire  Dominus  vo- 
biscum  ni  reciter  1 'office  cn  aucun 
lieu  sacre.  Ce  qui  est  faux  et  suspect 
d’heresie.” — “4.  Les  sacremens  admi- 
nistrcz  ou  l’office  dit  par  un  tel  pretre 
ne  valent  pas  mieux  que  les  cris  des 
chiens.  Proposition  fausse  et  erronee 
dans  la  premiere  partie,  heretique 
scandaleuse  et  offensant  les  oreilles 
pieuses  dans  la  seconde."  —  Fleury, 
Hist.  Eccles.  Liv.  cxvi.  No.  39. 


2  When,  after  the  fearful  disaster  of 
Taas,  the  council  of  Bale,  in  1432, 
commenced  the  conferences  which  re¬ 
sulted  in  the  nominal  reconciliation 
of  the  Hussites,  the  fathers  of  the 
council  were  much  scandalized  at 
hearing  the  Bohemian  deputies  rever¬ 
ently  quote  Wickliffe  as  the  Evangeli¬ 
cal  Doctor.  In  fact,  Peter  Payne,  his 
disciple,  who  did  so  much  to  promul¬ 
gate  his  doctrines  in  Bohemia,  was  one 
of  the  disputants  (Hartzheim  Y. 
762-4).  Even  as  early  as  1403  the 
errors  of  Wickliffe  were  formally  con¬ 
demned  by  the  University  of  Prague, 
on  presentation  by  the  Ordinary  of  the 
diocese,  showing  that  they  were  already 
spreading  and  attracting  attention 
(llofler,  Concil.  Pragensia,  p.  43. — 
Frag,  1862). 

3  Artie.  Damnat.  Joannis  Husz,  No. 
viii*.  x.  xi.  xii.  xiii.  xxii.  xxx. 
(Concil.  Constantiens.  Sess.  xv.) — On 
his  examination  Huss  declared  that 
these  articles  were  exaggerated.  See 
the  proceedings  in  Von  der  Hardt, 
T.  IV.  pp.  309-11.  But  on  the  next 
day  he  defended  a  proposition  which 
was  virtually  identical  (Ibid  p  321). 


THE  HUSSITES. 


383 


only  inspired  by  indignation  at  seeing  the  wealth  of  the  church, 
which  was  the  patrimony  of  the  poor,  lavished  on  prostitutes,  feast¬ 
ing,  hunting,  rich  apparel,  and  other  unseemly  extravagance.1  In 
the  Bohemian  clergy  he  had  an  ample  target  for  his  assaults,  for  they 
were  in  no  respect  better  than  their  neighbors.  During  the  latter 
half  of  the  fourteenth  century  scarce  a  synod  was  held  which  did 
not  denounce  their  vices,  gambling,  drunkenness,  usury,  simony,  and 
concubinage;  and  when  to  put  an  end  to  the  latter  irregularity  a 
strict  visitation  was  made  throughout  the  archiepiscopal  diocese  of 
Prague,  the  cunning  rogues  sent  away  or  secreted  their  partners  in 
guilt,  and  openly  recalled  them  as  soon  as  the  storm  had  passed. 
The  following  year,  Archbishop  Sbinco  peremptorily  commanded  that 
all  concubines  should  be  dismissed  within  six  days,  under  pain  of 
perpetual  imprisonment,  but  this  was  evidently  regarded  as  a  mere 
brutum  fulmen,  for  the  next  year  a  new  device  was  resorted  to,  by 
pronouncing  all  concubinary  priests  to  be  heretics.2  All  this  might 
certainly  seem  to  warrant  any  effort  that  might  be  made  to  accomplish 
what  the  authorities  so  signally  failed  in  doing,  but  that  any  indi¬ 
vidual  should  assert  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  reforming  the 
church  in  its  head  and  its  members  threatened  results  too  formidable 
to  the  whole  structure  of  sacerdotalism,  and  the  condemnation  of 
Huss  was  inevitable.  Still,  like  Wickliffe,  he  was  a  devout  believer 
in  ascetic  purity.  His  denunciations  of  the  wealth  and  disorders  of 
the  clergy  raised  so  great  an  excitement  throughout  Bohemia  that 
King  Wenceslas  was  forced  to  issue  a  decree  depriving  immoral 
ecclesiastics  of  their  revenues.  The  partisans  of  Huss  took  a  lively 
interest  in  the  enforcement  of  this  law,  and  brought  the  unhappy 
ecclesiastics  before  the  tribunals  with  a  pertinacity  which  amounted 
to  the  persecution  of  an  inquisition.3 

Unlike  the  Lollards,  the  Hussites  maintained  the  strictness  of 
their  founder’s  views  on  the  subject  of  celibacy.  If  the  fiercer 
Taborites  cruelly  revenged  their  wrongs  upon  the  religious  orders,  it 
was  to  punish  the  minions  of  Borne,  and  not  to  manifest  their  con¬ 
tempt  for  asceticism ;  and,  at  the  same  time,  even  the  milder  Calixtins 


1  Poggii  Florent.  Descript.  Hieron. 
Prag.  (Yon  der  Hardt,  T.  III.  p.  69). 

2  Statut.  Synod,  ann.  1405 ;  1406 
No.  1 ;  1407  No.  3  (Hdfler  Concil.  Pra- 
gens.  pp.  50,  54,  59). 

3  Pluquet,  Diet,  des  Heresies,  s.  v. 
Huss. — Synod.  Olomucens.  ann.  1413 


can.  1.  “  asserentes  etiam  .  .  .  quod 
bona  clericorum  male  viventium  pos- 
sunt  rapere  et  eos  spoliare  sine  poena 
excommunicationis  .  .  .  Ex  eadem 
radice  et  hceretica  pravitate  dicunt 
alii,  quod  sacerdos  in  mortali  existens 
peccato  non  possit  conticere  corpus 
Christi”  (Hartzheim  Y.  39,  40). 


384 


THE  HERESIES. 


treated  all  lapses  from  clerical  virtue  among  themselves  with  a 
severity  which  proved  their  sincerity  and  earnestness,  and  which  had 
long  been  a  stranger  to  the  administration  of  the  church.1  One  of 
the  complaints  against  the  priesthood  formulated  in  the  proclamation 
of  Procopius  and  the  other  chiefs  in  1431,  at  the  assembling  of  the 
Council  of  Bale,  was  that  the  clergy  were  all  fornicators,  committing 
adultery  with  men’s  wives,  or  having  wives  and  “  presbyterisste  ”  of 
their  own;2  and  when,  in  1562,  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  endeavored 
to  procure  from  the  Council  of  Trent  the  use  of  the  cup  for  the 
Utraquists  or  Calixtins  of  Bohemia,  he  urged  in  their  favor  that 
they  would  not  admit  the  ministrations  of  any  priest  who  did  not 
lead  a  celibate  life.3  Traces  of  the  teachings  of  the  Fraticelli,  more¬ 
over,  are  to  be  found  in  the  doctrines  which  dissevered  temporal  from 
spiritual  power,  and  denied  to  the  clergy  all  ownership  or  dominion 
over  landed  possessions.4 

The  Hussite  movement  thus  was  an  efficient  protest  against  some 
of  the  forms  of  sacerdotalism.  The  nominal  reconciliation  effected 
by  the  Council  of  Bale,  against  the  wishes  of  the  papacy,  afforded 
considerable  scope  for  religious  liberty,  which  was  strengthened  by 
the  alliance  between  Bohemia  and  Poland.  The  reigns  of  George 
Podiebrad,  Vlasdislav,  and  Louis,  which  extended  from  1458  to  1525, 
favored  this  spirit  and  prepared  the  soil  for  the  rapid  spread  of 
Lutheranism  throughout  those  regions,  which  in  the  sixteenth  century 
narrowly  escaped  permanent  separation  from  Catholic  unity. 


1  Conciliab.  Pragens.  ann.  1420 
can.  xii.,  xiii. — At  this  time  the  Huss¬ 
ites  had  full  sway  in  Bohemia;  the 
council  was  held  by  Conrad,  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Prague,  who  had  adopted 
their  faith,  and  its  canons  were  in¬ 
tended  for  the  internal  regulation  of 
their  own  church  (Hartzheim  V.  198). 
In  the  long  conferences,  extending 
from  1431  to  1438,  which  resulted  in 
their  reunion  with  the  Catholic  church, 
there  is  no  allusion  to  the  subject  of 
celibacy.  The  four  points  on  which 
they  insisted  were,  1st,  the  communion 
in  both  elements;  2d,  the  reformation 
of  morals  by  abrogating  ecclesiastical 
immunity ;  3d,  free  preaching  of  the 
Scripture ;  and  4th,  the  secularization 
of  church  property  (Ibid.  760-73). 
How  little,  in  fact,  they  differed  in  doc¬ 
trinal  points  from  Rome  is  seen  in  the 
confession  of  faith  agreed  upon  at 
Prague  in  1432  (Johan,  de  Ragus.  de 


Reduct.  Bohem.  ap.  Monument.  Con- 
cil.  General.  Saec.  xv.  pp.  182  sq.). 

This  did  not,  however,  save  them 
from  the  customary  accusations  of 
immorality.  Thus,  a  contemporary 
describes  the  indulgence  of  indiscrimi¬ 
nate  intercourse  as  one  of  the  rules  of 
the  sect  (Joann.  Fistenportii  Chron. 
ann.  1419. — Hahn.  Collect.  Monument. 
T.  I.  p.  403),  and,  in  1431,  Conrad, 
Archbishop  of  Mainz,  in  convoking  a 
council  to  take  action  against  them, 
says  of  the  sect  “  exterminavit  clerum 
et  omnem  coelibatum  commercio  ne- 
phando  stupravit.”  —  Gudeni  Cod. 
Diplom.  IV.  185. 

3  Epist.  Procopii  Art.  vhi.  (Mar- 
tene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  25). 

3  Petit.  Ciesaris  No.  12  (Le  Plat, 
Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  V.  348). 

4  Conciliab.  Pragens.  ann.  1420  can. 

'  viii. 


BRETHREN  OF  THE  CROSS. 


385 


One  fragment  of  the  Hussites,  however,  held  wholly  aloof  from 
reconciliation  to  Rome  and  professed  to  uphold  in  their  purity  the 
doctrines  of  their  founder.  These  called  themselves  the  Orthodox 
Brethren,  but  were  stigmatized  by  their  adversaries  with  the  oppro¬ 
brious  name  of  Picardi,  in  allusion  to  an  obnoxious  heresy  of  the 
previous  centuries.  In  process  of  time  they  admitted  the  validity  of 
priestly  marriage,  though  it  was  discouraged  among  them  in  view  of 
the  dangers  to  which  they  were  exposed  and  the  constant  risk  of 
martyrdom  incurred  by  all  who  ventured  to  be  conspicuous  among 
them,  for  Hussite  and  Catholic  alike  sought  their  extermination. 
Yet  they  bravely  maintained  their  existence  until  the  Reformation, 
when  they  eagerly  fraternized  with  Luther,1  such  minor  differences 
as  existed  in  the  organization  of  the  respective  churches  being 
amicably  regulated  in  15T0  by  the  agreement  of  Sendomir.2 

Wickliffe  and  Huss  were  not  the  only  inheritors  of  the  antisacer- 
dotal  spirit  of  the  Fraticelli.  About  the  close  of  the  fourteenth 
century  there  arose  in  Thuringia  a  heresiarch  of  the  flagellants  named 
Conrad  Schmidt,  whose  teachings  swept  away  the  forms  and  observ¬ 
ances  which  had  so  thickly  incrusted  the  simple  doctrines  of  Chris¬ 
tianity.  The  sacrifice  of  the  mass,  image-worship,  fasting,  feasts, 
purgatory,  confession,  and  absolution,  all  fell  before  the  fearless  logic 
of  the  reformer,  and  his  disciples  fondly  treasured  him  in  memory  as 
a  second  incarnation  of  Enoch.  For  forty  years  the  sect  flourished 
in  secret,  but  at  length  it  was  discovered  in  Misnia,  where  its 
members  were  known  as  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  and  where  it  was 
exterminated  in  1414  by  the  fagots  of  Sangerhausen.  The  licen¬ 
tious  doctrines  attributed  to  them  by  the  monkish  chronicler  show 
that  sacerdotal  celibacy  was  one  of  the  observances  which  they  re¬ 
pudiated.3  Similar  in  its  tendency,  and  almost  identical  in  details, 
was  the  heresy  which,  in  1411,  was  condemned  in  Flanders  by  Peter 
d’Ailly,  Archbishop  of  Cambrai.  Giles  Cantor,  a  layman,  and  a 
Carmelite  known  as  "William  of  Hilderniss  gathered  around  them 


1  Camerarii  Hist.  Narrat.  de  Fratrum 
Orthodox.  Ecclesiis  in  Bohemia,  etc. 
pp.  100,  109-10,  114,  121,  128. 

2  Consensus  in  Fide  inter  Ecclesias 
Evangelicas,  etc.  Haidelbergse,  1605. 

3  The  spirit  of  the  sectaries  of 
Schmidt  is  shown  by  one  of  their  doc¬ 
trines —  “Propter  sacerdotum  nequi- 


tiam,  licentiavit  Deus  et  abjecit  sacer- 
dotium  evangelicum,”  and  by  their 
argument  for  abolishing  masses  for 
the  dead  “nihil  prosint  defunctis,  sed 
sint  solatia  vivorum  et  repleant  mar- 
supia  clericorum.” — Gobelin.  Person. 
Cosmodrom.  iEtat.  vi.  cap.  xciii. — 
Cf.  Theod.  Vrie,  Hist.  Concil.  Con¬ 
stant.  Lib.  hi.  Dist.  viii. 


25 


386 


THE  HERESIES. 


followers  wlio  assumed  the  title  of  Men  of  Intelligence.  Like  Conrad 
Schmidt,  they  rejected  the  empty  formalism  which  had  to  so  great  an 
extent  usurped  the  place  of  religion.  The  Atonement  had  satisfied 
God  for  all ;  there  was  no  necessity  for  the  intervention  of  sacerdotal 
ministrations,  for  confession  and  absolution  were  useless,  Christ  was 
not  present  in  the  sacrament,  purgatory  did  not  exist,  and  all  man¬ 
kind,  besides  the  fallen  angels,  would  in  the  end  be  saved.  There 
was,  however,  little  of  the  temper  of  martyrs  about  them,  and  a 
public  renunciation  of  their  errors  at  Brussels  speedily  deprived  them 
of  all  importance.1 


Savonarola  can  scarcely  be  classed  among  heretics.  Though  he 
was  tortured  and  put  to  death  by  the  church  for  his  rebellious 
attempts  to  purify  it,  still  his  doctrines  never  varied  from  strict 
orthodoxy,  and  Benedict  XIV.  even  included  him  in  a  catalogue  of 
the  holy  servants  of  God.2  Yet  Savonarola,  when  his  career  was 
cut  short,  was  rapidly  becoming  a  schismatic,  as  was  inevitable  with 
all  reformers  of  ardent  temperament  as  soon  as  they  discovered  the 
impossibility  of  removing  the  corruptions  of  the  establishment.  If, 
instead  of  the  fickle  support  of  the  Florentine  populace,  which  be¬ 
trayed  him  at  his  utmost  need,  he  had  enjoyed  the  steadfast  protec¬ 
tion  of  such  a  patron  as  the  Elector  Frederic  of  Saxony,  he  would 
doubtless  have  ripened  in  time,  as  Luther  subsequently  did,  into  a 
full-blown  heresiarch,  though  his  innate  defects  of  character  would 
scarcely  have  enabled  him,  under  any  circumstances,  to  conduct  suc¬ 
cessfully  so  complicated  a  movement  as  a  separation  from  the  church. 

The  principal  feature  of  his  history  which  concerns  us  is  the  good- 
natured  indifference  with  which  Alexander  VI.  endured  his  repeated 
attacks  on  the  scandals  and  vices  of  the  papal  court.  There  were  so 
many  political  interests  entangled  in  Savonarola’s  career  that  it  is 
not  always  easy  to  reach  the  hidden  springs  of  action  at  work,  but 
it  may  be  assumed  that  Alexander,  if  left  to  himself,  would  have 


1  See  the  proceedings  in  Baluze  and 
Mansi,  I.  288-93.  As  usual,  the  Men 
of  Intelligence  were  accused  of  indul¬ 
ging  in  promiscuous  intercourse. 

2  Even  soon  after  Savonarola’s  mar¬ 
tyrdom,  Julius  II.  refused  to  listen  to 
those  who  desired  a  condemnation  of 
his  memory.  Leo  X.  honored  him  by 
celebrating  the  Epiphany  of  1515  in 
his  convent  of  San  Marco.  Julius  III. 


declared  that  he  would  deem  heretical 
an)’  one  who  should  attack  him.  Paul 
IV.  assembled  a  congregation  for  the 
purpose  of  examining  and  deciding 
upon  his  works,  and  after  six  months’ 
labor  they  reported  that  his  writings 
were  unexceptionable,  though  a  portion 
which  reflected  too  vigorously  on  the 
papal  court  were  declared  to  be  unfitted 
for  general  perusal. — Pcrrens,  Jerome 
Savonarole,  Paris  185G,  pp.  296-7. 


SAVONAROLA. 


387 


allowed  the  reformer  to  declaim  unmolested.  More  than  once  he 
interdicted  the  Dominican  from  preaching  and  ordered  him  to  Rome, 
but  took  little  heed  of  disobedience.  At  length  he  launched  an  ex- 
communication,  which  for  nearly  a  year  received  as  little  respect  as 
his  previous  orders,  and  when  at  length  a  sudden  revulsion  of  feeling 
among  the  Florentine  mob  enabled  him  to  dispose  of  his  adversary 
under  the  forms  of  law,  it  is  probable  that  even  then  he  would  not 
have  pushed  matters  to  such  extremity  had  not  Savonarola  been  led 
to  an  act  of  aggressive  rebellion.  The  Duke  of  Milan  forwarded  to 
the  pope  intercepted  letters  in  which  the  reformer,  by  command  of 
God,  urged  the  monarchs  of  Europe  to  call  a  general  council  under 
pretext  that  the  church  was  without  a  head,  since  Alexander  was  an 
infidel  who  had  obtained  the  tiara  by  simony  and  had  polluted  it 
with  unimaginable  vices.  In  his  capacity  of  prophet,  Savonarola 
promised  the  rulers  triumph  over  their  enemies  if  they  would  aid  in 
the  good  work  of  cleansing  the  church,  and  he  engaged  to  prove 
before  the  council  the  truth  of  his  allegations  by  working  miracles.1 
It  would  probably  be  unjust  to  condemn  him  as  an  imposter,  but 
such  conclusion  is  only  to  be  escaped  by  pronouncing  him  partially 
insane.  That  fierce  age  was  not  apt  to  invoke  such  considerations 
in  palliation  of  so  flagrant  an  attempt  at  revolution,  and  Savonarola 
was  doomed. 

While  thus  trampling  out  these  successive  revolts,  the  church  was 
blind  to  the  lesson  taught  by  their  perpetual  recurrence.  The  minds 
of  men  were  gradually  learning  to  estimate  at  its  true  value  the  claim 
of  the  hierarchy  to  veneration,  and  at  the  same  time  the  vices  of  the 
establishment  were  yearly  becoming  more  odious,  and  its  oppression 
more  onerous.  The  explosion  might  be  delayed  by  attempts  at 
partial  reformation,  but  it  was  inevitable. 


1  See  Baluze  et  Mansi  I.  584-5  for 
the  letters  to  the  Emperor  of  Germany 
and  King  and  Queen  of  Spain.  Per- 
rens  (op.  cit.  p.  875)  also  gives  the  one 


L- 


addressed  to  the  King  of  France,  while 
those  to  the  Kings  of  England  and 
Hungary  have  apparently  been  lost. 


XXIV. 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


Neither  the  assaults  of  heretics  nor  the  constant  efforts  at  partial 
reform  attempted  by  individual  prelates  had  thus  far  proved  of  any 
avail.  As  time  wore  on,  the  church  sank  deeper  into  the  mire  of 
corruption,  and  its  struggles  to  extricate  itself  grew  feebler  and  more 
hopeless.  We  have  seen  that,  early  in  the  fifteenth  century,  Gerson 
advised  an  organized  system  of  concubinage  as  preferable  to  the  in¬ 
discriminate  licentiousness  which  was  everywhere  prevalent.  Even 
more  suggestive  are  the  declarations  of  Nicholas  de  Clemanges, 
Rector  of  the  University  of  Paris  and  Secretary  of  Benedict  XIII. 
(Pedro  de  Luna).  He  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  vices  of  the 
clergy  were  so  universal  that  those  w*ho  adhered  to  the  rule  of  chastity 
were  the  objects  of  the  most  degrading  and  disgusting  suspicions,  so 
little  faith  was  there  in  the  possible  purity  of  any  ecclesiastic.  He 
also  records  the  extension  of  a  custom  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded  when  he  states  that  in  a  majority  of  parishes  the  people 
insisted  on  their  pastors  keeping  concubines,  and  that  even  this  was 
a  precaution  insufficient  for  the  peace  and  honor  of  their  families.1 
In  another  tract  he  describes  the  mass  of  the  clergy  as  wholly  aban¬ 
doned  to  worldly  ambition  and  vices,  oppressing  and  despoiling  those 
subjected  to  them  and  spending  their  ill-gotten  gains  in  the  vilest 
excesses,  while  they  ridiculed  unsparingly  such  few  pious  souls  as 
endeavored  to  live  according  to  the  light  of  the  gospel.2  In  most  of 
the  dioceses  the  parish  priests  openly  kept  concubines,  which  they 


1  Taceo  de  fomicationibus  et  adulte- 
riis,  a  quibus  qui  alieni  sunt  probro 
caeteris  ac  ludibrio  esse  solent,  spado- 
nesque  aut  sodomitao  appellantur ; 
denique  laici  usque  adeo  persuasum 
liabent  nullos  ccelibes  esse,  ut  in  pie- 
risque  parochiis  non  aliter  velint 
presbyterum  tolerare  nisi  concubinara 


habeat,  quo  vel  sic  suis  sit  consultum 
uxoribus,  quae  nec  sic  quidem  usque- 
quaque  sunt  extra  periculum. — Nic. 
de  Clemangis  de  Praesul.  Simoniac. 
(Bayle,  Diet.  Ilist.  s.  v.  Hall). 

2  Nic.  de  Clnmengiis  Disput.  super 
Mater.  Concil.  General. 


DEMORALIZATION  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


389 


were  permitted  to  do  on  payment  of  a  tax  to  their  bishops.  Nun¬ 
neries  were  brothels,  and  to  take  the  veil  was  simply  another  mode 
of  becoming  a  public  prostitute.1  Cardinal  Peter  d’Ailly  declares 
that  he  does  not  dare  to  describe  the  immorality  of  the  nunneries.2 
In  a  similar  indignant  mood  Gerson  stigmatizes  the  nunneries  of  his 
time  as  houses  of  prostitution,  the  monasteries  as  centres  of  trade  and 
amusement,  the  cathedral  churches  as  dens  of  ravishers  and  robbers, 
and  the  priesthood  at  large  as  habitual  concubinarians.3  That  he 
felt  these  evils  to  be  inseparable  from  the  condition  of  the  church  is 
evident  when,  in  an  argument  to  prove  the  necessity  of  celibacy,  he 
is  driven  to  the  assertion  that  it  is  better  to  tolerate  incontinent 
priests  than  to  have  no  priests  at  all.4  ITe  argues  that  the  clergy 
are  worthy  of  as  many  sentences  of  damnation  as  they  seduce  souls 
to  perdition  by  their  corrupt  example,  and  he  asks,  when  he  who 
destroys  himself  by  his  own  sins  is  to  be  condemned,  whether  he 
who  draws  with  him  numerous  others  is  not  still  more  worthy  of 
perdition.5  Theodoric  a  Niem  represents  the  bishops  of  Scandinavia 
as  carrying  with  them  their  concubines  on  their  pastoral  visitations, 
and  as  inflicting  penalties  on  such  of  the  parish  priests  as  they  found 
living  without  similar  companions,  while  these  women  habitually 
took  precedence  in  church  of  the  wives  of  the  neighboring  gentry — 
and  he  adds  that  the  clergy  of  the  south  of  Europe  were  no  better.6 
Theodoric  Yrie,  a  learned  and  pious  churchman  of  Saxony,  is 
equally  unsparing  in  his  denunciations  of  the  Teutonic  clergy7 — 
and,  indeed,  the  testimony  of  the  wrriters  of  the  period  is  so  unani¬ 
mous  that  their  descriptions  of  clerical  vices  cannot  be  regarded  as 
the  mere  rhetorical  declamation  of  disappointed  reformers. 

It  was  evident  that  the  efforts  of  local  synods  were  fruitless  to 
eradicate  evils  so  general  and  so  deeply  rooted,  while  the  necessity 
for  some  reform  became  every  day  more  apparent.  Though  Lollardry 
had  been  crushed  in  England  under  the  stern  hand  of  Henry  V.,  yet 
it  was  reappearing  in  Bohemia  in  a  form  even  more  threatening. 


1  Nic.  de  Clamengiis  de  Ruina  Ec- 
clesise  cap.  xxii.,  xxxvi. — Conf.  Theo- 
baldi  Conquest.  (VonderHardt  T.  I.  P. 
xix.  p.  909). 

2  P.  de  Alliaco  Canones  Reformat, 
cap.  iv.  (Yon  der  Hardt  T.  I.  P.  vi. 
p.  425). 

8  Gersoni  Declarat.  defect,  viror.  ec- 
clesiast.  lxv.,  lxvi. 

4  Dicimus  quod  de  duobus  malis 


minus  est  incontinentes  tolerare  sacer- 
dotes  quam  nullos  habere.  —  Gersoni 
Dial.  Sophiae  et  Naturae  Act.  iv. 

5  Ejusd.  Sermo  de  Yita  Clericorum. 

6  Theod.  a  Niem  Nemoris  Unionis 
Tract.  Y.  cap.  xxxv. 

7  Theod.  Yrie  Hist.  Concil.  Con¬ 
stant.  Lib.  ii.,  hi.  (Yon  der  Hardt 
T.  I.). 


390 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


The  council  of  Pisa  had  not  succeeded  in  healing  the  Great  Schism, 
and  there  arose  a  general  demand  for  an  (Ecumenic  Council  in  which 
the  church  universal  should  assemble  for  the  purpose  of  purifying 
itself,  of  eradicating  heresy,  and  of  settling  definitely  the  pretensions 
of  the  three  claimants  of  the  papacy.  John  XXIII.  yielded  to  the 
pressure,  and  the  call  for  the  Council  of  Constance  went  forth  in  his 
name  and  in  that  of  the  Emperor  Sigismund. 

So  powerful  a  body  had  never  before  been  gathered  together  in 
Europe.  It  claimed  to  be  the  supreme  representative  of  the  church, 
and  though  it  acknowledged  John  XXIII.  as  the  lawful  successor  of 
St.  Peter,  it  had  no  scruples  in  arraigning,  trying,  condemning,  and 
deposing  him — an  awful  expression  of  its  supremacy,  without  prece¬ 
dent  in  the  past,  and  without  imitation  in  succeeding  ages.  As  re¬ 
gards  heresy,  it  did  the  best  it  could,  according  to  the  lights  of  its 
age,  by  burning  John  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague.  Its  functions 
as  a  reformer,  however,  required  for  their  exercise  more  nerve  than 
even  the  condemnation  of  a  pope.  Many  members  were  thoroughly 
penetrated  with  the  conviction  that  reform  was  of  instant  necessity, 
and  such  men  as  Gerson,  Peter  d’Ailly  of  Cambrai,  and  Nicholas 
de  Clemanges  were  prepared  to  shrink  from  none  of  the  means  requi¬ 
site  for  so  hallowed  an  end.  In  the  existing  corruption,  however,  of 
the  body  from  which  representatives  were  drawn,  such  men  could 
scarcely  form  a  controlling  majority.  After  the  council  had  been  in 
session  for  nearly  two  years,  the  reformers  began  to  despair  of  effect¬ 
ing  anything,  and  Clemanges  did  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  nothing 
was  to  be  expected  from  men  who  would  regard  reform  as  the  greatest 
calamity  that  could  befall  themselves;1  while  another  of  the  members 
of  the  council  declared  that  every  one  wanted  such  a  reform  as  should 
allow  him  to  retain  his  own  particular  form  of  iniquity.2  These  esti¬ 
mates,  indeed,  of  the  character  of  the  majority  of  the  good  fathers 
of  Constance  is  borne  out  by  the  contemporary  accounts  of  the  mul¬ 
titudes  who  flocked  to  it  to  ply  their  trades  among  the  assembled 
dignitaries  of  the  church,  showing  that  they  were  by  no  means  all 
devoted  to  mortifying  the  flesh.3 


1  Nic.  de  Clamengiis,  Disput.  sup. 
Mat.  Cone.  General.  This  work  was 
written  in  1416,  after  the  council  had 
been  in  session  for  nearly  two  years. 

2  Theobaldi  Conquestio  (Yon  der 
Hardt  T.  I.  P.  xix.  p.  904). 

8  Item,  fistulatores,  tubicena?,  jocu- 


latores,  516;  item,  meretrices,  virgines 
public*,  718.  —  Laur.  Byzynii  Diar. 
Bell.  Hussit.  A  Catholic  contempo¬ 
rary,  however,  reduces  the  number  of 
courtezans  to  450  and  that  of  jugglers 
and  minstrels  to  320  (Joann.  Fisten- 
portii  Chron.  ann.  1415. — Hahn.  Col¬ 
lect.  Monument.  I.  401). 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  CONSTANCE. 


391 


The  feelings  of  those  who  sincerely  desired  reform,  as  they  saw 
the  prospect  rapidly  fading  before  their  eyes,  may  be  estimated  by  a 
sermon  of  a  sturdy  Gascon  abbot,  Bernhardus  Baptisatus,  preached 
before  the  council  in  August,  1517,  about  three  months  before  the 
conservatives  succeeded  in  carrying  their  point  by  electing  Martin  V. 
He  denounces  the  members  of  the  council  as  Pharisees,  falsely  pre¬ 
tending  to  be  devout  in  order  to  elude  the  punishment  due  to  their 
crimes.  The  masses  and  processions,  which  were  the  main  business 
of  the  assemblage,  he  declares  to  be  valueless  in  the  eye  of  God,  for 
most  of  those  who  so  busily  took  part  in  them  were  involved  solely 
in  worldly  cares,  laughing,  cheating,  sleeping,  or  demoralizing  the 
rest  with  their  ungodly  conversation.  The  Holy  Spirit  did  not  hold 
the  acts  of  the  council  acceptable,  nor  dwell  with  its  unrighteous 
members.1  Such  a  convocation  could  have  but  one  result. 

It  is  easy  therefore  to  understand  the  influences  that  were  brought 
to  bear  to  defeat  the  expectations  of  the  reformers;  how  the  subject 
could  be  postponed  until  after  the  questions  connected  with  the  papacy 
and  with  heresy  were  disposed  of ;  and  how,  after  the  election  of 
Martin  V.,  those  who  shrank  from  all  reform  could  assume  that  it 
might  safely  be  intrusted  to  the  hands  of  a  pontiff  so  able,  so  ener¬ 
getic,  and  so  virtuous.  In  all  this  they  were  successful.  The 
council  closed  its  weary  sessions,  April  22,  1418,  and  during  its 
three  years  and  a  half  of  labor  it  had  only  found  leisure  to  regulate 
the  dress  of  ecclesiastics,  the  unclerical  cut  of  wdiose  sleeves  was 
especially  distasteful  to  the  representative  body  of  Christendom.2 

Still,  the  reformers  had  made  a  stubborn  fight,  and  had  procured 
the  appointment  of  a  commission  to  consider  all  reformatory  propo¬ 
sitions  and  prepare  a  general  scheme  for  the  adoption  of  the  council. 
This  body  labored  as  diligently  as  though  its  deliberations  were  to 
be  crowned  wfith  practical  results,  and  various  projects  of  reform 
proposed  by  it  have  been  preserved.  In  one  of  these  the  severest 
measures  of  repression  were  suggested  to  put  an  end  to  the  scandal 
of  concubinage  which  was  openly  practised  in  the  majority  of  dio¬ 
ceses.  Under  this  scheme,  while  all  the  canonical  punishments  here¬ 
tofore  decreed  were  maintained  in  full  vigor,  deprivation  was  pro¬ 
nounced  against  all  holders  of  ecclesiastical  preferment,  from  bishops 
down,  who  should  not  within  one  month  eject  their  guilty  partners ; 
their  positions  were  declared  vacant  ipso  jure ,  and  their  successors 

1  Bernhardi  Baptisati  Sermo  (Yon  der  Hardt  T.  I.  P.  xvm.  pp.  884-5). 

2  Concil.  Constant.  Sess.  XLIII.  can.  de  Yita  et  Honestate  Clericorum. 


392 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


were  to  be  immediately  appointed.  Those  who  did  not  hold  benefices 
were  similarly  to  be  declared  ineligible  to  preferment.  It  appears  that 
scandals  had  arisen  in  many  places  from  the  Hildebrandine  and 
Wickliffite  heresy  whereby  parishioners  declined  the  ministrations  of 
those  who  were  living  in  open  and  notorious  sin ;  and  to  avoid  these, 
while  the  commission  declined  to  pass  an  opinion  on  the  propriety  of 
such  action,  it  advised  that  such  private  judgment  should  not  be  exer¬ 
cised.1  In  another  elaborate  system  of  reform,  which  bears  the  marks  of 
long  deliberation,  the  attempt  was  made  to  eradicate  the  long-standing 
abuse  of  admitting  to  preferment  the  illegitimate  children  of  ecclesi¬ 
astics,  and  it  was  declared  that  papal  dispensations  should  no  longer 
be  recognized  except  in  cases  of  peculiar  fitness  or  high  rank.2  The 
same  code  of  discipline  struck  a  significant  blow  at  the  inviolability 
of  the  monastic  profession  when  it  endeavored  to  check  the  prevailing 
and  deplorable  licentiousness  of  the  nunneries  by  decreeing  that  no 
woman  should  be  admitted  to  the  vows  beneath  the  age  of  twenty, 
and  that  all  vows  taken  at  a  younger  age  should  be  null  and  void.3 
These  projects  are  interesting  merely  as  indicating  the  direction  in 
which  the  reforming  portion  of  the  church  desired  to  move,  and  as 
showing  that  even  they  did  not  propose  to  remove  the  celibacy  which 
was  the  chief  cause  of  the  evils  they  so  sincerely  deplored. 


Martin  V.  had  assumed  the  responsibility  of  reforming  the  church, 
and  he  did,  in  fact,  attempt  it  after  some  fashion,  though  he  appar¬ 
ently  took  to  heart  Dante’s  axiom — 

Lunga  promessa,  con  l’attender  corto 
Ti  fara  trionfar  nell’  alto  seggio. 

In  1422  Cardinal  Branda  of  Piacenza,  his  legate,  when  sent  to 
Germany  to  preach  a  crusade  against  the  Hussites,  was  honored  with 
the  title  of  Reformer  General,  and  full  powers  were  given  to  him  to 
effect  this  part  of  his  mission.  The  letters-patent  of  the  pope  bear 
ample  testimony  to  the  fearful  depravity  of  the  Teutonic  church,4 


1  De  Ecclesie  Reformat.  Protocoil, 
cap.  xxxiii.  (Yon  der  Hardt  T.  I.  P. 
x.  pp.  G35-6). 

2  Reformatorii  Constant.  Decretal. 
Lib.  i.  Tit.  v.  (Ibid.  p.  679). 

3  Ibid.  Lib.  hi.  Tit.  x.  cap.  20 
(p.  722). 

4  For  instance,  as  regards  the  religi¬ 
ous  houses — “  In  nonnullis  quoque 


monasteriis  .  .  .  norma  discipline  re- 
spuitur,  cultus  divinus  negligitur,  per¬ 
son®  quoque  hujusmodi,  vitae  ac 
morum  honestate  prostrata,  lubrici- 
tati,  incontinence,  et  aliis  variis  car- 
nalis  concupiscentie  voluptatibus  et 
viciis  non  sine  gravi  divine  majesta- 
tis  offensa  tabescentes,  vitam  ducunt 
dissolutam.” — Martin  V.  ad  Brandam 
$  iii.  (Ludewig  Reliq.  Msctorum  XI. 
409). 


CORRUPTION  UNDIMINISHED. 


393 


while  the  constitution  which  Branda  promulgated  declares  that  in  a 
portion  of  the  priesthood  there  was  scarcely  left  a  trace  of  decency 
or  morality.  According  to  this  document,  concubinage,  simony, 
neglect  of  sacred  functions,  gambling,  drinking,  fighting,  buffoonery, 
and  kindred  pursuits,  were  the  prevalent  vices  of  the  ministers  of 
Christ;  but  the  punishments  which  he  enacted  for  their  suppression 
— repetitions  of  those  which  we  have  seen  proclaimed  so  many  times 
before — were  powerless  to  overcome  the  evils  which  had  become  part 
and  parcel  of  the  church  itself.1 

What  was  the  condition  of  clerical  morals  in  Italy  soon  after  this 
may  be  learned  from  a  single  instance.  When  Ambrose  was  made 
General  of  the  austere  order  of  Camaldoli  he  set  vigorously  to  work 
to  reform  the  laxity  wThich  had  almost  ruined  it.  One  of  his  abbots 
was  noted  for  abounding  licentiousness ;  not  content  with  ordinary 
amours,  he  was  wont  to  visit  the  nunneries  in  his  district  to  indulge 
in  promiscuous  intercourse  with  the  virgins  dedicated  to  God.  Yet 
Ambrose  in  taking  him  to  task  did  not  venture  to  punish  him  for  his 
misdeeds,  but  promised  him  full  pardon  for  the  past  and  to  take  him 
into  favor,  if  he  would  only  abstain  for  the  future — a  task  which 
ought  to  be  easy  as  he  was  now  old  and  should  be  content  with  having 
long  lived  evilly  and  be  ready  to  dedicate  his  few  remaining  years  to 
the  service  of  God.2  When  a  reformer,  who  enjoyed  the  special 
friendship  and  protection  of  Eugenius  IV.,  was  forced  to  be  so 
moderate  with  such  a  criminal,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  what  was  the 
tone  of  morality  in  the  church  at  large. 

While  the  Armagnacs  and  Burgundians  were  rivalling  the  English 


1  Usque  adeo  nonnullorum  clerico- 
rum  corruptela  excrevit,  ut  morum 
atque  honestatis  vestigia  apud  eos 
pauca  admodum  remanserint. — Con- 
stit.  Brandse  $  1  (Op.  cit.  XI.  385). 
This  condition  of  affairs  was  not  the 
result  of  any  abandonment  of  the 
attempt  to  enforce  the  canons.  Local 
synods  were  meeting  every  year,  and 
scarcely  one  of  them  failed  to  call 
attention  to  the  subject,  devising  fresh 
penalties  to  effect  the  impossible.  The 
result  is  shown  in  the  lament  of  the 
council  of  Cologne  in  1423 — 11  Quia 
tamen,  succrescente  malitia  temporis 
moderni.  labes  hujusmodi  criminis  in 
ecclesia  Dei  in  tantum  inolevit,  quod 
scandala  plurima  in  populo  sunt  ex- 
orta,  et  verisimiliter  exoriri  poterunt 
in  futurum,  et  ex  fide  dignorum  rela¬ 


tione  percepimus  quod  quidam  eccle- 
siarum  prselati  et  alii,  etiam  capitula 
.  .  .  tales  in  suis  iniquitatibus  susti- 
nuerunt  et  sustinent.”  So  far,  how¬ 
ever,  were  the  decrees  of  the  council 
from  being  effective,  that  the  Arch¬ 
bishop  was  obliged  to  modify  them 
and  to  declare  that  they  should  only 
be  enforced  against  those  ecclesiastics 
who  were  notoriously  guilty,  and  who 
kept  their  concubines  publicly. — 
Concil.  Coloniens.  ann.  1423  can,  i. 
viii.  (Hartzheim  V.  217,  220). 

2  Ambrosii  Camaldulensis  Lib.  v. 
Epist.  xii.  (Martene  Ampliss.  Collect. 
III.  119-21).  This  was  not  the  only 
case  of  abbots  whose  scandalous  lives 
were  treated  with  equal  forbearance. 
See  Epistt.  xiii.,  xiv. 


394 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


in  carrying  desolation  into  every  corner  of  France,  it  could  not  be 
expected  that  the  peaceful  virtues  could  flourish,  or  sempiternal 
corruption  be  reformed.  Accordingly,  it  need  not  surprise  us  to  see 
Hardouin,  Bishop  of  Angers,  despondingly  admit,  in  1428,  that 
licentiousness  had  become  so  habitual  among  his  clergy  that  it  was 
no  longer  reputed  to  be  a  sin ;  that  concubinage  was  public  and  un¬ 
disguised,  and  that  the  patrimony  of  Christ  was  wasted  in  support¬ 
ing  the  guilty  partners  of  the  priesthood.  That  gambling,  swearing, 
drunkenness,  and  all  manner  of  unclerical  conduct  should  accompany 
these  disorders,  is  too  probable  to  require  the  concurrent  testimony 
which  the  worthy  bishop  affords  us.1  Alain  Chartier,  Archdeacon 
of  Paris  and  Secretary  to  Charles  VI.  and  Charles  VII.,  confirms 
this  in  a  more  general  way,  when  he  attributes  to  enforced  celibacy 
and  the  temporal  endowments  of  the  church  the  vices  and  crimes 
which  rendered  the  clergy  so  odious  and  contemptible  to  the  laity 
that  he  looks  forward  to  the  speedy  advent  of  Antichrist  to  wipe  out 
the  whole  system  in  universal  ruin.2  Apparently  its  corruption  was 
too  deep-seated  to  hope  for  any  milder  means  of  reformation.  To  this 
we  may  at  least  partially  attribute  the  utter  loss  of  respect  for  sacred 
things  which  rendered  the  churches  and  their  pastors  a  special  mark 
for  pillage  and  persecution  during  the  dreary  civil  wars  of  the 
period.3 

In  England,  which  had  enjoyed  comparative  immunity  from  civil 
strife,  matters  were  quite  as  bad.  At  the  request  of  Henry  V.,  in 
1414,  the  University  of  Oxford  prepared  a  series  of  articles  for  the 
reformation  of  the  church,  whose  shortcomings  were  vehemently 
attacked  by  the  Lollards.  It  is  not  easy  to  imagine  a  more  humiliat¬ 
ing  confession  than  is  contained  in  the  38th  article,  directed  against 
priestly  immorality.  The  carnal  and  undisguised  profligacy  of 
ecclesiastics  is  declared  to  be  a  scandal  to  the  church,  and  its  impurity 
to  be  a  dangerous  temptation  to  others.  It  is  therefore  recommended 
that  all  public  fornicators  be  suspended  for  a  limited  time  from  the 
ministry  of  the  altar,  and  that  some  corporal  chastisement  be  inflicted 
on  them,  in  place  of  the  trifling  pecuniary  mulct,  which,  levied  in 
secret,  had  no  effect  in  deterring  them  from  their  evil  courses.4 


1  Harduini  Andegav.  Epist.  Statut. 
Praef.  (Martene  Thesaur.  IV.  523-4). 

2  Alan.  Charter.  Lib.  de  Exilio 

(Johan.  Mariae  Lib.  de  Schismat.  et 

Concil.). 


3  Nic.  de  Clamengiis  de  Lapsu  et 
Reparat.  Justitia3  (Ed.  1519  pp.  13- 
14). 


4  Wilkins  III.  304-5. 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  BALE. 


395 


Such  was  the  state  of  sacerdotal  morals  when  the  great  council  of 
Bale  attracted  to  itself  the  hopes  of  Christendom  as  the  sole  instru¬ 
ment  by  which  the  purification  of  the  church  could  be  effected — a 
purification  which  was  felt  to  he  the  only  safeguard  against  a  revolu¬ 
tionary  uprising  of  the  indignant  laity.  When  Eugenius  IV., 
towards  the  close  of  the  year  1431,  dreading  the  antagonism  between 
the  council  and  the  papacy,  sent  his  Bull  ordering  its  dissolution,  his 
legate,  Cardinal  Cesarini,  took  the  responsibility  of  refusing  obedience. 
His  letter  explaining  the  reasons  of  his  contumacy  affords  a  curious 
picture  of  the  internal  condition  of  the  church  and  of  the  relations 
existing  between  it  and  the  laity.  The  extreme  corruption  of 
ecclesiastical  morals  had  been  the  principal  object  of  convoking  the 
council  and  had  given  rise  to  a  feeling  of  fierce  hostility  towards  the 
church.  To  this  was  attributable  the  success  wThich  had  attended 
the  Hussite  movement,  and  unless  the  people  could  have  reason  to 
anticipate  amendment,  there  was  ample  cause  to  fear  a  general 
imitation  of  the  Hussites.  So  many  provincial  synods  were  daily 
held  without  result  that  confidence  was  no  longer  felt  in  the  ordinary 
ecclesiastical  machinery ;  the  state  of  the  public  mind  grew  constantly 
more  threatening  as  fresh  scandals  were  wrought  by  the  clergy,  and 
the  hopes  entertained  of  the  council  were  the  only  restraint  which 
prevented  the  breaking  out  of  a  wide-spread  revolt.  As  a  proof  of 
his  assertions,  the  legate  refers  to  various  local  troubles.  Magdeburg 
had  expelled  her  archbishop  and  clergy,  was  preparing  wagons  with 
which  to  fight,  after  the  Bohemian  fashion,  and  was  said  to  have  sent 
for  a  Hussite  to  command  her  forces.  Passau  had  revolted  against 
her  bishop,  and  was  even  then  laying  close  siege  to  his  citadel. 
Bamberg  was  engaged  in  a  violent  quarrel  with  her  bishop  and 
chapter.  These  cities  were  regarded  as  the  centres  of  formidable 
secret  confederacies,  and  were  believed  to  be  negotiating  with  the 
Hussites.1  The  good  fathers  evidently  recognized  the  full  magnitude 
of  the  danger.  The  results  of  the  inaction  of  the  Council  of  Con¬ 
stance  were  full  of  pregnant  warnings.  The  reformers  could  no 
longer  be  brought  to  trust  the  papacy,  and  those  who  might  secretly 
deprecate  reform  were  fully  alive  to  the  threatening  aspect  of  affairs. 
They  therefore  addressed  themselves  resolutely  to  the  removal  of  the 
cause.  All  who  wTere  guilty  of  public  concubinage  w’ere  ordered  to 

1  iEnese  Sylvii  Comment,  de  Gest.  I  Avisam.  ann.  1433  (Goldast.  III.  427 
Cone.  Basil,  ad  calcem  (Opp.  Basil,  sqq.). 

1551  pp.  66-70). — Cf.  Sigismundi  Imp.  | 


896 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


dismiss  their  consorts  within  sixty  days  after  the  promulgation  of  the 
canon,  under  pain  of  deprivation  of  revenue  for  three  months. 
Persistent  contumacy  or  repetition  of  the  offence  was  visited  with 
suspension  from  functions  and  stipend  until  satisfactory  evidence 
should  he  afforded  of  repentance  and  amendment.  Bishops  who 
neglected  to  enforce  the  law  were  to  be  held  as  sharing  the  guilt 
which  they  allowed  to  pass  unpunished ;  and  those  prelates  who  were 
above  the  jurisdiction  of  local  tribunals  or  synods  were  to  be  re¬ 
manded  to  Rome  for  trial.  The  council  deplored  the  extensive  prev¬ 
alence  of  the  “cullagium,”  by  which  those  to  whom  was  entrusted 
the  administration  of  the  church  did  not  hesitate  to  enjoy  a  filthy 
gain  by  selling  licenses  to  sin.  A  curse  was  pronounced  on  all 
involved  in  such  transactions;  they  were  to  share  the  penalties  of  the 
guilt  which  they  encouraged,  and  were,  in  addition,  to  pay  a  fine  of 
double  the  amount  of  their  iniquitous  receipts.1  In  the  Pragmatic 
Sanction,  moreover,  agreed  upon  in  1488  between  the  Emperor 
Albert  II.  and  Charles  VII.  of  France,  the  regulation  confiscating 
three  months’  revenues  of  concubinary  priests  was  embodied.2 

Honest,  well-meant  legislation  this ;  yet  the  fathers  of  the  council 
or  the  princes  of  Christendom  could  hardly  deceive  themselves  with 
the  expectation  that  it  would  prove  effectual.  If  legislation  could 
accomplish  the  desired  result,  there  had  already  been  enough  of  it 
since  the  days  of  Siricius.  The  compilations  of  canon  law  were  full 
of  admirable  regulations,  by  which  generation  after  generation  had 
endeavored  to  attain  the  same  object  by  every  imaginable  modifica¬ 
tion  of  inquisition  and  penalty.  Ingenuity  had  been  exhausted  in 
devising  laws  wTiich  were  only  promulgated  to  be  despised  and  for¬ 
gotten.  Something  more  was  wanting,  and  that  something  could  not 
be  had  without  overturning  the  elaborate  structure  so  skilfully  and 
laboriously  built  up  by  the  craft  and  enthusiasm  of  ten  centuries. 

How  utterly  impotent,  in  fact,  were  the  efforts  of  the  council,  is 
evident  when,  within  five  years  after  the  adoption  of  the  Basilian 
canons,  Doctor  Kokkius,  in  a  sermon  preached  before  the  council  of 
Freysingen,  could  scarcely  find  words  strong  enough  to  denounce  the 
evil  courses  of  the  clergy  as  a  class;3  and  when,  within  fifteen  years, 


Concil.  Basiliens.  Sess.  xx.  (Jan.  22,  1  mendaces,  gestu  incompositi,  victu 

luxuriosi,  actu  impii,  et  sub  vacuo 


1435). 

2  Pragm.  Sanct.  ann.  1438  cap.  31 
(Goldast.  I.  403). 

3  Quoniam  nostri 
sunt,  heu,  affectu 


tcmporis 

crudelcs, 


sanctitatis  nomine  sancti  nonunis 
derogant  discipline  (Ilartzheim  V. 
266).  The  council  contented  itself 
clerici  ,  with  repeating  the  canons  of  Bale, 
affatu  i 


EVIL  INFLUENCE  OF  ROME. 


397 


we  find  Nicholas  V.  declaring  that  the  clergy  enjoyed  such  immunity 
that  they  scarcely  regarded  incontinence  as  a  sin — a  declaration  sus¬ 
tained  by  the  regulations  promulgated  for  the  restraint  of  the  officials 
of  his  own  court,  which  imply  the  previous  open  and  undisguised 
defiance  of  the  canons.1 

Even  in  this  attempt  of  Nicholas,  however,  is  to  be  seen  one  of  the 
causes  which  perpetuated  the  corruption  of  the  church.  He  orders 
that  all  who  thereafter  persist  in  keeping  concubines  in  defiance  of 
the  regulations  shall  be  incapable  of  receiving  benefices  without 
special  letters  of  indulgence  from  the  Holy  See.2  Shrouded  under  a 
thin  veil  of  formality,  this  in  substance  indicates  the  degrading  source 
of  revenue  which  was  so  energetically  condemned  in  inferior  officials. 
The  pressing  and  insatiable  pecuniary  needs  of  the  papal  court, 
indeed,  rendered  it  impotent  as  a  reformer,  however  honest  the 
wearer  of  the  tiara  might  himself  be  in  desiring  to  rescue  the  church 
from  its  infamy.  Reckless  expenditure  and  universal  venality  were 
insuperable  obstacles  to  any  comprehensive  and  effective  measures  of 
reformation.  Every  one  was  preoccupied  either  in  devising  or  in 
resisting  extortion.  The  local  synods  were  engaged  in  quarrelling 
over  the  subsidies  demanded  by  Rome,  wdiile  the  chronicles  of  the 
period  are  filled  with  complaints  of  the  indulgences  sold  year  after 
year  to  raise  money  for  various  purposes.  Sometimes  the  objects 
alleged  are  indignantly  declared  to  be  purely  supposititious ;  at  other 
times  intimations  are  thrown  out  that  the  collections  were  diverted  to 
the  private  gain  of  the  popes  and  of  their  creatures.3  The  opinion 


1  Lib.  nr.  Tit.  i.  c.  3,  in  Septimo. 

2  Quicunque  alii  concubinas  et  mu- 
lieres  hujusmodi,  contra  prassentem 
prohibitionem  tenere  praesumentes, 
inhabiles  censeantur  ad  beneficia  ob- 
tinenda,  et  in  dicta  curia  officia  hu¬ 
jusmodi  exercenda,  nec  illorum  ca- 
paces  efficiantur,  nisi  inhabilitatem 
suam  antea  per  dictae  sedis  literas 
obtinuerint  aboleri. — Ubi  sup. 

3  Comp.  Doeringii  Chron.  passim. 
Doringk  was  minister  or  head  of  the 
powerful  Franciscan  order  in  Saxony, 
and  therefore  may  be  considered  an 
unexceptionable  witness. 

In  the  Polish  diet  of  1459,  one  of 
its  leading  members  brought  forward 
a  series  of  propositions  which  showed 
the  feelings  entertained  by  the  people 
towards  papal  exactions — “The  Bishop 
of  Rome  has  invented  a  most  unjust 


motive  for  imposing  taxes  —  the  war 
against  the  infidels  .  .  .  The  Pope 
feigns  that  he  employs  his  treasures 
in  the  erection  of  churches;  but  in 
fact  he  employs  them  to  enrich  his 
relations,”  etc.  —  Krasinski,  Reforma¬ 
tion  in  Poland  I.  96. 

The  councils  of  Constance  and  Bale 
had  produced,  for  a  time,  a  spirit  of 
great  independence.  John  of  Frank¬ 
fort  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  the 
papal  authority  is  not  binding  when 
in  opposition  to  the  law  of  God — 
“Unde  patet  quod  nec  papalis  vel  et 
imperialis  constitutio  legi  Dei  ob- 
vians  possit  dici  recta;  nec  aliquis 
ipsorum  potest  licite  mandare  quod 
sua  constitutio  servetur  a  subditis  ” 
(Johann,  de  Francford.  contra  Fey- 
meros).  According  to  the  decisions  of 
the  Decretalists,  this  was  rank  heresy, 
and  yet  John  of  Frankfort  was  one  of 


398 


,  THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


which  the  church  in  general  entertained  of  the  papal  court  is  mani¬ 
fested  with  sufficient  distinctness  in  a  letter  from  Ernest,  Archbishop 
of  Magdeburg,  to  his  ambassador  at  Rome.  The  prelate  states  that 
he  has  deposited  five  hundred  florins  in  Fugger’s  bank  at  Augsburg, 
for  which  he  desires  to  procure  certain  bulls,  one  to  enable  him  to 
sell  indulgences,  the  other  to  compel  the  chapter  of  Magdeburg  to 
allow  him  to  dispose  of  the  salt-works  of  Halle,  in  defiance  of  the 
vested  rights  of  his  church — thus  taking  for  granted  a  cynicism  of 
venality  which  it  would  be  difficult  to  parallel  in  the  secular  affairs 
of  the  most  corrupt  of  courts.1  Even  the  power  to  dispense  from 
the  vow  of  continence  was  occasionally  turned  to  account  in  this 
manner.  One  of  the  accusations  against  John  XXIII.  was  that  for 
600  ducats  he  had  released  Jacques  de  Yitry,  a  Hospitaller,  from  his 
vows,  had  restored  him  to  the  world,  and  enabled  him  to  marry.2 
In  fact,  when  a  pope  like  Sixtus  IV.  was  found  who  openly  sold  all 
preferment,  who  kept  a  regular  scale  for  every  grade  from  the  cardi- 
nalate  downwards,  and  who  only  varied  from  his  fixed  prices  by 
putting  up  at  auction  some  choice  benefice,3  it  can  hardly  be  expected 
that  discipline  could  be  enforced  or  the  ideal  of  chastity  realized. 


The  aspirations  of  Christendom  had  culminated  in  the  council  of 
Bale  in  the  most  potent  form  known  to  the  church  universal.  If 
the  results  were  scarce  perceptible  while  the  influences  of  the  council 
were  yet  recent,  and  while  the  antagonistic  papacy  was  under  the 
control  of  men  sincerely  desirous  to  promote  the  best  interests  of 
the  church,  such  as  Nicholas  Y.  and  Pius  II.,  we  can  feel  no  wonder, 
if  the  darkness  continued  to  grow  thicker  and  deeper  under  the  rule 
of  such  pontiffs  as  Sixtus  IY.,  Innocent  VIII.,  and  Alexander  YI. 
Savonarola  found  an  inexhaustible  subject  of  declamation  in  the 


the  leading  minds  of  the  period,  and 
of  unquestioned  orthodoxy.  He  was  a 
popular  preacher,  a  doctor  of  theology,  ! 
chaplain  and  secretary  of  the  Count  | 
Palatine  of  the  Rhine,  and  a  bold  dis¬ 
putant  against  the  Hussites.  He  re¬ 
cords  with  his  own  hand  that,  as 
inquisitor,  he  convicted  and  burned, 
July  4th,  1429,  at  Liiders,  an  unfortu¬ 
nate  heretic  who  denied  the  propriety 
of  invoking  the  Virgin  and  the  saints. 
Under  the  skilful  management,  how¬ 
ever,  of  Nicholas  V.  and  Pius  II.  this 
spirit  of  independence  died  away,  to 


again  revive,  in  the  next  century,  in  a 
more  determined  form. 

1  Ludewig  Reliq.  Msctorum.  XI 
415. — Under  Boniface  IX.,  at  the 
commencement  of  the  century,  claims 
arising  from  simoniacal  transactions 
were  constantly  and  openly  prosecuted 
in  the  court  of  the  Papal  Auditor. — 
Theod.  a  Niem  de  Vit.  Joann.  XXIII. 

2  Concil.  Constantiens.  Sess.  xi. 

3  Steph.  Infessuras  Diar.  Roman, 
ann.  1484  (Eccard.  Corp.  Hist.  III. 
1939-40). 


ITALY — FRANCE — ENGLAND. 


399 


fearful  vices  of  the  ecclesiastics  of  his  times,  whom  he  describes  as 
ruffiani  e  mezzani.1  In  the  kingdom  of  Naples  the  state  sought  to 
share  with  the  church  in  the  profits  of  impurity,  and  a  regular  tax 
was  laid  upon  the  concubines  of  ecclesiastics.  In  a  document  still 
preserved  in  the  Neapolitan  archives,  Alfonso  I.  complains  that  this 
tax  had  not  been  paid  for  three  years,  and  directs  his  bishops  to 
compel  its  collection  in  their  several  dioceses.2  In  the  assembly  of 
the  Trois  Etats  of  France,  held  at  Tours  in  1484,  the  orator  of  the 
Estates,  Jean  de  Rely,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Angers,  in  his  official 
address  to  Charles  VIII.,  declared  it  to  be  notorious  that  the  religious 
orders  had  lost  all  devotion,  discipline,  and  obedience  to  their  rule, 
wdiile  the  canons  (and  he  was  himself  a  canon  of  Paris)  had  sunk 
far  below  the  laity  in  their  morals,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  church.3 

In  England,  the  facts  developed  by  the  examination  which  Inno¬ 
cent  VIII.  in  1489  authorized  Morton,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
to  make  into  the  condition  of  the  religious  houses,  present  a  state  of 
affairs  quite  as  bad.  Henry  VII.’s  first  Parliament,  in  1485,  had 
endeavored  to  accomplish  some  reform  by  passing  an  Act  empower¬ 
ing  the  episcopal  authorities  to  imprison  all  priests  and  monks  con¬ 
victed  of  carnal  lapses,4  but  this,  like  all  similar  legislation,  whether 
secular  or  ecclesiastical,  appears  to  have  been  useless.  Innocent 
describes  the  monasteries,  in  his  bull  to  the  archbishop,  as  wholly 
fallen  from  their  original  discipline,  and  this  is  fully  confirmed  by 
the  results  of  the  visitation.  The  old  and  wealthy  abbey  of  St. 
Albans,  for  instance,  was  little  more  than  a  den  of  prostitutes,  with 
whom  the  monks  lived  openly  and  avowedly.  In  two  priories  under 
its  jurisdiction  the  nuns  had  been  turned  out  and  their  places  filled 


1  “Si  vous  saviez  tout  ce  que  je 
sais !  des  choses  degoutantes !  des 
choses  horribles !  vous  en  fremiriez ! 
Quand  je  pense  a  tout  cela,  a  la  vie 
que  menent  les  pretres,  je  ne  puis 
retenir  mes  larmes.”  And  again,  “Ma 
peggio  ancora.  Quello  che  sta  la  notte 
con  la  concubina,  quell’  altro  con  il 
garzone,  e  poi  la  mattina  va  a  dire 
messa,  pensa  tu  come  la  va.  Che 
vuoi  tu  fare  di  quella  messa?”  — 
Jerome  Savonarole  d’apres  les  Docu¬ 
ments  Originaux,  par  F.  T.  Perrens, 
pp.  71-2.  Paris,  1856. 

2  Ap.  Chavard,  Le  Celibat.  des  Pre¬ 

tres,  p.  400. 


3  Masselin,  Journal  des  Etats  de 
Tours,  pp.  197-99. 

What  were  the  teachings  and  the  in¬ 
fluence  on  the  people  of  such  a  priest¬ 
hood  may  be  guessed  from  a  remark  in 
one  of  the  sermons  of  Oliver  Maillard, 
a  celebrated  Franciscan  preacher  of  the 
period.  “Sunt  ne  ibi  mulieres  et  sa- 
cerdotes  qui  dicunt  quod  mulieres  come- 
dentes  venenum  ad  expellendum  ma- 
teriam  de  matrice  sua,  ne  foetus  veniat 
ad  partum,  antequam  anima  rationalis 
introducatur,  non  peccant  mortaliter?” 
— Ap.  H.  Estienne,  Apol.  pour  Hero- 
dote  Liv.  I.  chap.  vi. 

4  1  Henr.  VII.  4. 


400 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


with  courtezans,  to  whom  the  monks  of  St.  Albans  publicly  resorted, 
indulging  in  all  manner  of  shameless  and  riotous  living,  the  details 
of  which  can  well  be  spared.1  These  irregularities  were  emulated 
by  the  secular  ecclesiastics.  Among  the  records  of  the  reign  of 
Henry  VII.  is  a  memorial  from  the  gentlemen  and  farmers  of 
Carnarvonshire,  complaining  that  the  seduction  of  their  wives  and 
daughters  was  pursued  systematically  by  the  clergy.2  That  the 
prevalence  of  these  practices  was  thoroughly  understood  is  shown  in 
a  book  of  instructions  for  parish  priests  drawn  up  by  a  canon  of 
Lilleshall  about  this  period.  In  enumerating  the  causes  for  which  a 
parson  may  shrive  a  man  not  of  his  own  parish,  he  includes  the  case 
in  which  the  penitent  has  committed  sin  with  the  concubine  or 
daughter  of  his  own  parish  priest.3 

Spain  was  equally  infected.  The  council  of  Aranda,  in  14T3, 
denounced  bitterly  the  evil  courses  by  which  the  clergy  earned  for 
themselves  the  wrath  of  God  and  the  contempt  of  man,  and  it  en¬ 
deavored  to  suppress  the  sempiternal  vice  by  the  means  which  had 
been  so  often  ineffectually  tried — visitations,  fines,  excommunication, 
suspension,  forfeiture  of  benefice,  and  imprisonment — but  all  to  as 
little  purpose  as  before.4  The  trouble  continued  without  abatement 
and  the  council  of  Seville,  in  1512,  felt  itself  obliged  to  repeat  as 
usual  all  the  old  denunciations  and  penalties,  including  those  against 
ecclesiastics  who  officiated  at  the  marriages  of  their  children,  which 
it  prohibited  for  the  future  under  a  fine  of  2000  maravedis — a 
mulct  which  it  likewise  provided  for  those  who  committed  the  inde¬ 
cency  of  having  their  children  as  assistants  in  the  solemnity  of  the 
Mass.5 

What  was  the  condition  of  morals  in  Germany  may  be  inferred 
from  some  proceedings  of  the  chapter  of  Brunswick  in  1476.  The 
canons  intimate  that  the  commission  of  scandals  and  crimes  has 
reached  a  point  at  which  there  is  danger  of  their  losing  the  inesti- 


1  Wilkins  III.  630-33.  . 

Yet  in  the  letter  of  Archbishop  Mor¬ 
ton  to  the  abbot  reciting  all  these  enor¬ 
mities,  he  is  not  even  threatened  with 
deposition,  but  only  invited  to  mend 
his  ways. 

2  Froude’s  History  of  England,  1 
Ch.  hi. 

8  Or  gef  hym  self  had  done  a  synne 
By  the  prestes  sybbe  kynne, 


Moder  or  suster,  or  hys  lemmon 
Or  by  hys  doghter  gef  he  had  on. 

John  Mvrc’s  Instructions  for  Parish 
Priests,  p.  26  (Early  English  Text  So¬ 
ciety,  1868). 

4  Concil.  Arandens.  ann.  1473  c.  ix. 
(Aguirre  Y.  345-6). 

5  Concil.  Hispalens.  ann.  1512  can. 
xxvi.,  xxvii.  (Aguirre  Y.  371-2). 


HUNGARY  —  THE  NORTH  OF  EUROPE. 


401 


mable  privilege  of  exemption  from  episcopal  jurisdiction.  They 
therefore  declare  that  for  the  future  the  canons,  vicars,  and  officiating 
clergy  ought  not  to  keep  their  mistresses  and  concubines  publicly  in 
their  houses,  or  live  with  them  within  the  bounds  of  the  church,  and 
those  who  persist  in  doing  so  after  three  warnings  shall  be  suspended 
from  their  prebends  until  they  render  due  satisfaction.1  In  this 
curious  glimpse  into  the  domestic  life  of  the  cathedral  close,  it  is 
evident  that  the  worthy  canons  were  moved  by  no  shame  for  the  pub¬ 
licity  of  their  guilt,  but  only  by  a  wholesome  dread  of  giving  to  their 
bishop  an  excuse  for  procuring  the  forfeiture  of  their  dearly  prized 
right  of  self-judgment. 

The  Hungarian  church,  by  a  canon  dating  as  far  back  as  1382, 
had  finally  adopted  a  pecuniary  mulct  as  the  most  efficacious  mode  of 
correcting  offenders.  The  fine  was  five  marks  of  current  coin,  and 
by  granting  one-half  to  the  informer  or  archdeacon,  and  the  other  to 
the  archiepiscopal  chamber,  it  was  reasonably  hoped  that  the  rule 
might  be  enforced.  The  guardians  were  not  faithful,  however,  for 
two  synods  of  Gran,  one  in  1450  and  the  other  in  1480,  reiterate 
the  complaint,  not  only  that  the  archdeacons  and  other  officials  kept 
the  whole  fine  to  themselves,  but  also,  what  was  even  worse,  that 
they  permitted  the  criminals  to  persevere  in  sin,  in  order  to  make 
money  by  allowing  them  to  go  unpunished.2  This  state  of  affairs 
was  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  the  description  of  his  prelates  by 
Matthias  Corvinus  be  correct.  They  were  worldly  princes,  whose 
energies  were  devoted  to  wringing  from  their  flocks  fabulous  revenues 
to  be  squandered  in  riotous  living  on  the  hordes  of  cooks  and  concu¬ 
bines  who  pandered  to  their  appetites.3  The  morals  of  the  regular 
clergy  were  no  better,  for  a  Diet  held  by  Yladislas  II.  in  1498  com¬ 
plained  of  the  manner  in  which  abbots  and  other  monastic  dignitaries 
enriched  themselves  from  the  revenues  of  their  offices,  and  then, 
returning  to  the  world,  publicly  took  wives,  to  the  disgrace  of  their 
order.4 

In  Pomerania  the  evil  had  at  length  partially  cured  itself,  for  the 
female  companions  of  the  clergy  seem  to  have  been  regarded  as  wives 
in  all  but  the  blessing  of  the  church.  Benedict,  Bishop  of  Camin, 


1  Statut.  Eccles.  in  Braunschweig, 
cap.  75  (Mayer,  Thes.  Jur.  Eccles. 
I.  124). 


3  G-aleoti  Martii  de  dictis  et  factis 
Matthiae  Regis  cap.  xi.  (Schwandtneri 
Rer.  Hungar.  Script.). 


2  Synod.  Strigonens.  ann.  1382,  1450,  4  Synod.  Reg.  ann.  1498  c.  16  (Bat- 

1480  (Batthyani  III.  275,  481,  557).  thyani  I.  551). 

26 


402 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


in  1492,  held  a  synod  in  which  he  quaintly  but  vehemently  objur¬ 
gates  his  ecclesiastics  for  this  wickedness ;  declares  that  no  man  can 
part  such  couples  joined  by  the  devil;  alludes  to  their  offspring  as 
beasts  creeping  over  the  earth,  and  has  his  spleen  peculiarly  stirred 
by  the  cloths  of  Leyden  and  costly  ornaments  with  which  the  fair 
sinners  were  bedecked,  to  the  scandal  of  honest  women.1  His  indig¬ 
nation  was  wasted  on  a  hardened  generation,  for  his  successor,  Bishop 
Martin,  on  his  accession  to  the  see  in  1499,  found  the  custom  still 
unchecked.  The  new  bishop  promptly  summoned  a  synod  at  Sitten 
in  1500,  where  he  reiterated  the  complaints  of  Benedict,  adding  that 
the  priests  convert  the  patrimony  of  Christ  into  marriage  portions 
for  their  children,  and  procure  the  transmission  of  benefices  from 
father  to  son,  as  though  glorying  in  the  perpetuation  of  their  shame. 
What  peculiarly  exasperated  the  good  prelate  was  that  the  place  of 
honor  was  accorded  as  a  matter  of  course  to  the  priests  and  their 
consorts  at  all  the  merry-makings  and  festivities  of  their  parishioners, 
which  shows  how  fully  these  unions  were  recognized  as  legitimate, 
and,  apparently,  for  prudential  reasons,  encouraged  by  the  people.2 

Similar  customs,  or  worse,  doubtless  prevailed  in  Sleswick,  for 
when  Eggard  was  consecrated  bishop  in  1494,  he  signalized  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  his  episcopate  by  forbidding  his  clergy  to  keep  such 
female  companions.  The  result  was  that  before  the  year  expired  he 
was  forced  to  abandon  his  see,  and  five  years  later  he  died,  a 
miserable  exile  in  Rome.3 

The  monastic  orders  were  no  better  than  the  secular  clergy.  When 
Ximenes  was  made  Provincial  of  the  Franciscan  order  in  Spain,  he 
set  himself  earnestly  at  work  to  force  the  brethren  to  live  according 
to  the  Rule.  A  large  portion  of  them,  known  as  Claustrals,  led 
disorderly  lives,  almost  purely  secular,  and  refused  absolutely  to 
submit  to  the  observance  of  their  vows.  King  Ferdinand  being 


1  Wise  Hist.  Episc.  Gamin,  c.  41. — 
These  irregularities  were  not  of  recent 
introduction.  The  canon  referred  to 
is  copied  almost  literally  from  a  sy¬ 
nod  held  nearly  forty  years  before  by 
Bishop  Henning.  In  fact,  from  the 
description  given  by  the  latter  of  the 
drinking,  gambling,  trading,  and  li¬ 
centiousness  of  the  ecclesiastics  of 
Gamin,  there  was  little  of  the  clerical 
character  about  them. — Synod.  Camin. 
ann.  1454  (Hartzheim  Y.  030). 


2  "Wise  Hist.  Episc.  Camin.  c.  42. — 
Synod.  Sedinens.  c.  5. 

In  West  Prussia,  in  1497,  the  synod 
of  Ermeland  expresses  itself  as  scan¬ 
dalized  by  the  priests  taking  their  com¬ 
panions  publicly  to  fairs  and  other 
gatherings,  and,  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
practice,  it  offers  to  secret  informers 
one-half  of  the  fine  imposed  on  such 
indiscretions. — Synod.  Warmiens.  ann. 
1497  c.  xxxix.  (Hartzheim  Y.  6G8). 

3  Boissen  Chron.  Slesvicens.  ann. 
1494. 


THE  MONASTIC  ORDERS. 


403 


appealed  to  pronounced  sentence  of  banishment  upon  them,  and  they 
absolutely  preferred  existence  in  exile  to  the  insupportable  yoke  of 
their  Order.  Yet  they  considered  themselves  so  aggrieved  that  when 
they  left  Toledo  they  marched  in  procession  through  the  Puerta 
Yisagra  with  a  crucifix  at  their  head,  singing  the  113th  Psalm  “In 
exitu  Israel  de  Egypto.”  When  Ximenes  was  promoted  to  the 
primatial  see  of  Toledo,  the  malcontents  appealed  to  the  Yicar 
General  of  the  Order  in  Rome,  who  came  to  Spain  and  warmly 
espoused  their  cause,  being  only  forced  to  desist  by  the  decided  stand 
taken  by  Queen  Isabella  in  favor  of  Ximenes.1  It  was  the  same 
with  the  other  monastic  orders.  A  bull  of  Alexander  VI.,  issued  in 
1496  for  the  purpose  of  reforming  the  Benedictines,  describes  the 
inhabitants  of  many  establishments  of  both  sexes  in  that  ancient  and 
honored  institution  as  indulging  in  the  most  shameless  profligacy ; 
and  marriage  itself  wTas  apparently  not  infrequently  practised.2 
Savonarola  did  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  nuns  in  their  convents 
became  worse  than  harlots.3  Even  the  strictest  of  all  the  orders — 
the  Cistercian — yielded  to  the  prevailing  laxity.  A  general  chapter, 
held  in  1516,  denounces  the  intolerable  abuse  indulged  in  by  some 
abbots  who  threw  off  all  obedience  to  the  rule,  and  dared  to  keep 
women  under  pretence  of  requiring  their  domestic  services.4  To 
fully  appreciate  the  force  of  this  indication,  it  is  requisite  to  bear  in 
mind  the  stringency  of  the  regulations  which  forbade  the  foot  of 
woman  to  pollute  the  sacred  retirement  of  the  Cistercian  monas¬ 
teries.5 


1  Robles,  Vida  del  Card.  Ximenes  de 
Cisneros,  cap.  xii.,  xiii. — Robles  was 
chaplain  to  Ximenes,  and  presumably 
derived  his  information  from  the  car¬ 
dinal  himself. 

2  Rursus  in  certis  monasteriis  died 
ordinis,  ipsge  moniales  apertis  claus- 
tris,  indifierenter  omnes  homines  etiam 
suspectos  intromittunt,  ac  extra  mon- 
asteria  in  curiis,  castris  et  plateis  va- 
gantes,  plura  scandala  committunt  .  . 
Similiter  religiosi  qui  in  sacris  ordini- 
bus  constituti  non  sunt,  relicto  habito 
regulari,  matrimonium  contrahere  di- 
cuntur.  .  .  .  Pneterea  omnes  et  sin- 
gulos  monachos  et  moniales  regulam 
S.  Benedicti  hujusmodi  expresse  vel 
tacite  professos,  qui  habituin  monas- 
ticum  sine  dispensatione  legitima  re- 
liquerunt  aut  matrimonia  contraxe- 
runt,  ad  monasteria,  si  ilia  exiverunt , 
redire  et  habitum  monasticum  ac 


velum  nigrum  reassumere  dicta  auc- 
toritate  compellatis. — App.  ad  Chron. 
Cassinens.  Ed.  Dubreul,  pp.  902-3. 

The  words  italicized  would  seem  to 
indicate  that  monks  and  nuns  occa¬ 
sionally  married  without  even  quit¬ 
ting  their  monasteries. 

3  Perrens,  Jerome  Savonarole,  p.  84. 

4  Statut.  Ord.  Cisterc.  ann.  1516 
(Martene  Thesaur.  IY.  1636-7). 

5  Thus,  in  1193,  the  general  chapter 
of  the  order  promulgated  the  rule — 
“[Si  contigerit  mulieres  abbatiam  or¬ 
dinis  nostri  ex  consensu  intrare,  ipse 
abbas  a  patre  abbate  deponatur  absque 
retractatione.  Et  quicumque  sine  con- 
scientia  abbatis  introduxerit,  de  domo 
ejiciatur,  non  reversurus,  nisi  per  gene- 
rale  capitulum.” — (Capit.  General.  Cis¬ 
terc.  ann.  1193  cap.  6 — apud  Martene 
Thesaur.  IY.  1276.)  The  strictness 


404 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


The  efforts  constantly  made  to  check  these  abuses  produced  little 
result.  A  Carthusian  monk,  writing  in  1489,  deplores  the  fact  that 
while  monasteries  were  everywhere  being  reformed,  few  if  any  of 
them  maintained  their  morals,  but  returned  to  their  old  condition 
immediately  on  the  death  of  the  zealous  fathers  who  had  sought  to 
improve  them.1  That  condition  is  described  by  a  Benedictine  Abbot, 
the  celebrated  Trithemius,  in  general  terms,  as  that  of  dens  in  which 
it  was  a  crime  to  be  without  sin,  their  inhabitants  for  the  most  part 
being  addicted  to  all  manner  of  vices,  and  being  monks  only  in  name 
and  vestment.2 


with  which  this  was  enforced  is  illus¬ 
trated  by  the  proceedings  in  1205 
against  the  abbot  of  the  celebrated 
house  of  Pontigny,  because  he  had 
allowed  the  Queen  of  France  and  her 
train  to  be  present  at  a  sermon  in  the 
chapel  and  a  procession  in  the  cloisters, 
and  to  spend  two  nights  in  the  in- 
hrmary.  He  adduced  in  his  defence 
a  special  rescript  of  the  pope  and  a 
permission  from  the  head  of  the  order 
in  favor  of  the  queen,  but  these  were 
pronounced  insufficient,  and  sentence 
was  passed  that  he  merited  instant 
deposition  “quia  tarn  enorme  factum 
sustinuit,  in  totius  ordinis  injuriam,” 
but  that  in  consequence  of  the  power¬ 
ful  intercession  of  the  Archbishop  of 
Rheims  and  other  bishops,  he  was 
allowed  to  escape  with  lighter  punish¬ 
ment. —  (Hist.  Monast.  Pontiniac. — 
Martene  Thesaur.  III.  1245.) 

This  rule,  indeed,  was  almost  uni¬ 
versal  in  the  ancient  monasteries. 
The  great  abbey  of  St.  Martin  of 
Tours  preserved  it  inviolate  until  the 
incursions  of  the  Northmen  rendered 
the  house  an  asylum  for  the  inhabi¬ 
tants  of  the  surrounding  territory,  and 
the  prohibition  was  subsequently  re¬ 
vived  and  formally  approved  by  Leo 
VII.  in  938  (Leonis  PP.  VII.  Epist. 
vi.).  In  that  of  Sithieu,  from  the 
time  of  its  foundation  early  in  the 
seventh  century,  it  was  preserved 
without  infraction  for  more  than  three 
centuries.  Even  the  license  of  the 
Carlovingian  revolution  did  not  cause 
its  inobservance;  and  when,  amid  the 
disorders  of  the  tenth  century,  the 
Counts  of  Flanders  became  lay  abbots 
of  the  convent,  and  discipline  was 
almost  forgotten,  the  mediation  of  two 
bishops  was  required  to  obtain  per¬ 
mission,  about  the  year  940,  for  Adela, 
Countess  of  Flanders,  prostrated  with 
mortal  sickness,  to  be  carried  in  and 


laid  before  the  altar,  where  she  miracu¬ 
lously  recovered. — (De  Mirac.  S.  Ber- 
tin.  Lib.  II.  c.  12 — Chron.  S.  Bertin. 
c.  23,  24.) 

So  when  Boniface  founded  the  abbey 
of  Fulda,  he  prohibited  the  entrance  of 
women  in  any  of  the  buildings,  even 
including  the  church.  The  rule  was 
preserved  uninfringed  through  all  the 
license  of  the  tenth  and  eleventh  cen¬ 
turies,  and  when,  in  1132,  the  Emperor 
Lothair  came  to  Fulda  to  celebrate 
Pentecost,  his  empress  was  not  allowed 
to  witness  the  ceremonies.  So  when 
Frederic  Barbarossa,  in  1135,  spent  his 
Easter  there,  he  was  not  permitted  to 
enter  the  town,  because  his  wife  was 
with  him.  In  1398  Boniface  IX.,  at 
the  request  of  the  Abbot  John  Merlaw, 
relaxed  the  rule  and  permitted  women 
to  attend  at  the  services  of  the  church 
— shortly  after  which  it  was  destroyed 
by  lightning,  as  a  warning  for  the  fu¬ 
ture. — (Paullini  Chron.  Badeslebiens. 
$  viii.) — An  equally  convincing  indica¬ 
tion  of  the  favor  with  which  this  regu¬ 
lation  was  regarded  by  Heaven  was 
afforded  when  Abbot  Helisacar,  about 
the  year  830,  introduced  it  in  the  cele¬ 
brated  monastery  of  St.  Kiquier,  and 
immediately  the  number  of  miracles 
worked  by  the  relics  of  the  Saint  in¬ 
creased  in  a  notable  degree  (Chron. 
Centulensis  Lib.  in.  cap.  ivj. —  At 
the  Grande  Chartreuse,  founded  by  St. 
Bruno  towards  the  end  of  the  eleventh 
century,  women  were  not  even  allowed 
to  enter  on  the  lands  of  the  community. 
— Chart.  S.  Hugon.  Gratianopolit. 
(Patrolog.  T.  166,  p.  1571). 

1  Anon.  Carthus.  de  Relig.  Orig.  cap. 
XL.  (Martene  Ampliss.  Coll.  VI.  93). 

2  Johan,  de  Trittenheim  Lib.  Lugu- 
bris  de  Statu  et  Ruina  Monast.  Ordinis 
cap.  iii. 


EFFORTS  TO  ABROGATE  CELIBACY. 


405 


That  the  clergy,  as  a  body,  had  become  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of 
the  people  is  evident  from  the  immense  applause  which  greeted  all 
attacks  upon  them.  In  14T6  a  rustic  prophet  arose  in  the  hamlet  of 
Niklaushausen,  in  the  diocese  of  Wurzburg,  who  was  a  fit  precursor 
of  Muncer  and  John  of  Leyden.  John  of  Niklaushausen  was  a 
swineherd,  who  professed  himself  inspired  by  the  Virgin  Mary. 
From  the  Rhine-lands  to  Misnia,  and  from  Saxony  to  Bavaria,  im¬ 
mense  multitudes  flocked  to  hear  him,  so  that  at  times  he  preached 
to  crowds  of  twenty  and  thirty  thousand  men.  His  doctrines  were 
revolutionary,  for  he  denounced  oppression  both  secular  and  clerical ; 
but  he  was  particularly  severe  upon  the  vices  of  the  ecclesiastical 
body.  A  special  revelation  of  the  Virgin  had  informed  him  that 
God  could  no  longer  endure  them,  and  that  the  world  could  not, 
without  a  speedy  reformation,  be  saved  from  the  divine  wrath  conse¬ 
quent  upon  them.1  The  unfortunate  man  was  seized  by  the  Bishop 
of  Wurzburg;  the  fanatical  zeal  of  his  unarmed  followers  was  easily 
subdued,  and  he  expiated  at  the  stake  his  revolt  against  the  powers 
that  were. 

Such  being  the  state  of  ecclesiastical  morality  throughout  Europe, 
there  can  be  little  wonder  if  reflecting  men  sought  occasionally  to 
reform  it  in  the  only  rational  manner — not  by  an  endless  iteration  of 
canons,  obsolete  as  soon  as  published,  or  by  ingeniously  varied 
penalties,  easily  evaded  or  compounded — but  by  restoring  to  the 
minister  of  Christ  the  right  to  indulge  legitimately  the  affections 
which  bigotry  might  pervert,  but  could  never  eradicate.  Even  as 
early  as  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  the  high  authority  of 
Bishop  William  Durand  had  acknowledged  the  inefiicacy  of  penal 
legislation,  and  had  suggested  the  discipline  of  the  Greek  church  as 
affording  a  remedy  worthy  of  consideration.2  As  the  depravity  of 
the  church  increased,  and  as  the  minds  of  men  gradually  awoke  from 
the  slumber  of  the  dark  ages,  and  shook  off  the  blind  reverence  for 


1  Annuntia  populo  fideli  meo,  et  die 
quod  Filius  meus  avaritiam,  superbiam 
et  luxuriam  clericorum  et  sacerdotum 
amplius  sustinere  nee  possit  nee  velit. 
Unde  nisi  se  quantocius  emendaverint, 
totus  mundus  propter  eorum  scelera 
periclitabitur. — Trithem.  Chron.  Hir- 
saug.  ann.  1476. 

2  Quum  pene  in  omnibus  conciliis  et 
a  plerisque  Romanis  pontificibus  super 
cohibenda  et  punienda  clericorum  in¬ 
continentia,  et  eorum  bonestate  servanda 


multa  hactenusemanaverintconstituta ; 
et  nullatenus  ipsorum  reformari  quiverit 
correctio  morum :  .  .  .  videretur  pen- 
sandum  an  expediret  et  posset  provideri 
quod  in  ecclesia  Occidentali,  quantum 
ad  votum  continents,  servaretur  con- 
suetudo  ecclesS  Orientalis,  quantum 
ad  promovendos,  potissime  quum  tem¬ 
pore  Apostolorum  consuetudo  ecclesise 
Orientalis  servaretur.  —  Durand,  de 
Modo  General.  Concil.  P.  n.  rubr.  46 
(Calixtus,  p.  537). 


406 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


tradition,  the  suggestion  presented  itself  with  renewed  force.  At 
the  council  of  Constance  Cardinal  Zabarella  did  not  hesitate  to  sug¬ 
gest  that  if  the  concubinary  practices  of  the  clergy  could  not  be 
suppressed  it  would  be  better  to  concede  to  them  the  privilege  of 
marriage,1  and  shortly  after  the  failure  of  the  council  to  effect  a 
reform  had  became  apparent,  Guillaume  Saignet  wrote  a  tract  en¬ 
titled  “Lamentatio  ob  Cmlibatum  Sacerdotum”  in  which  he  attacked 
the  existing  system,  and  called  forth  a  rejoinder  from  Gerson.  When 
the  council  of  Bale  was  earnestly  engaged  in  the  endeavor  to  restore 
forgotten  discipline,  the  Emperor  Sigismund  laid  before  it  a  formula 
of  reformation  which  embraced  the  restoration  of  marriage  to  the 
clergy.  His  orator  drew  a  fearful  picture  of  the  evils  caused  by  the 
rule  of  celibacy — evils  acknowledged  by  every  one  in  the  assembly 
— and  urged  that  as  it  had  produced  more  injury  than  benefit,  the 
wiser  course  would  be  to  follow  the  example  of  the  Greek  church.2 
A  majority  of  the  council  assented  to  the  principle,  but  shrank  from 
the  bold  step  of  adopting  it.  Eugenius  IV.  had  just  been  forced  to 
acknowledge  the  legitimacy  of  the  body  as  an  oecumenic  council;  the 
strife  with  the  papacy  might  again  break  forth  at  any  moment,  and 
it  was  not  politic  to  venture  on  innovations  too  audacious.  The  con¬ 
servatives,  therefore,  skilfully  eluded  the  question  by  postponing  it 
to  a  more  favorable  time,  and  the  postponement  was  fatal. 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  members  of  the  council,  Cardinal 
Nicholas  Tudeschi,  surnamed  Panormitanus,  wdiose  preeminence  as 
an  expounder  of  the  canon  law  won  for  him  the  titles  of  “  Canonis- 
tarum  Princeps”  and  “  Lucerna  Juris,”  declared  that  the  celibacy  of 
the  clergy  was  not  essential  to  ordination  or  enjoined  by  divine  law ; 
and  he  records  his  unhesitating  opinion  that  the  question  should  be 
left  to  the  option  of  the  individual — those  who  had  resolution  to  pre¬ 
serve  their  purity  being  the  most  worthy,  while  those  who  had  not 
would  be  spared  the  guilt  which  disgraced  them.3  So  ZEneas  Sylvius, 
who  as  Pius  II.  filled  the  pontifical  throne  from  1458  to  1464,  and 
who  knew  by  experience  how  easy  it  was  to  yield  to  the  temptations 


1  Card.  Zabarella)  Capit.  Agend.  in 
Concil.  Constant,  cap.  xii.  (Yon  der 
Hardt  T.  I.  P.  ix.  p.  525). 

2  Zaccaria,  Nuova  Giustificaz.  pp. 
121-2. — Milman,  Latin  Christ.  Book 
xiii.  chap.  12. 

3  Not  having  the  works  of  Tudeschi 
to  refer  to,  I  give  his  remarks  as  quoted 
by  Villadiego  (Fuero  Juzgo,  p.  177, 


No.  85)  from  Gloss,  in  cap.  olim,  de 
cleric,  conjug. — “Quod  deberet  eccle- 
sia  facere  sicut  bonus  medicus,  ut  si 
medicina,  experientia  docente,  potius 
officit  quam  prodit,  earn  tollat;  sic 
eorum  voluntati  relinqueretur,  ita  ut 
sacerdos  qui  abstinere  noluisset,  posset 
uxorem  ducere,  cum  quotidie  illicito 
coitu  maculentur.” 


OPPOSITION  TO  CELIBACY. 


407 


of  the  flesh,  is  reported  to  have  said  that  marriage  had  been  denied 
to  priests  for  good  and  sufficient  reasons,  but  that  still  stronger  ones 
now  required  its  restoration.1  Indeed,  when  arguing  before  the 
Council  of  Bale  in  favor  of  the  election  of  Amedeus  of  Savoy  to  the 
papacy,  he  had  not  scrupled  to  declare  that  a  married  priesthood 
would  be  the  salvation  of  many  who  were  damned  in  celibacy.2 
And  we  have  already  seen  that  Eugenius  IV.,  in  1441,  and  Alex¬ 
ander  VI.,  in  1496,  granted  permission  of  marriage  to  several 
military  orders,  as  the  only  mode  of  removing  the  scandalous  license 
prevailing  among  them. 

This  question  of  the  power  of  the  pope  to  dispense  with  the 
necessity  of  celibacy  seems  to  have  attracted  some  attention  about 
this  period.  In  1505,  Geoffroy  Boussard,  afterwards  Chancellor  of 
the  University  of  Paris,  published  a  tract  wherein  he  argued  that 
priestly  continence  was  simply  a  human  and  not  a  divine  ordinance, 
and  that  the  pope  was  fully  empowered  to  relax  the  rule  in  special 
cases,  though  he  could  not  abolish  wholly  an  institution  of  such  long 
continuance  which  had  received  the  assent  of  so  many  holy  fathers 
and  general  councils.  At  the  same  time,  one  of  his  arguments  in 
favor  of  its  enforcement  shows  how  little  respect  was  left  in  the  minds 
of  all  thinking  men  for  the  claims  of  the  church  to  veneration.  He 
quotes  Bonaventura  to  the  effect  that  if  bishops  and  archbishops  had 
license  to  marry  they  would  rob  the  church  of  all  its  property,  and 
none  would  be  left  for  the  poor,  for,  he  adds,  “  since  already  they 
seize  the  goods  of  the  church  for  the  benefit  of  distant  relatives,  what 
would  they  not  do  if  they  had  legitimate  children  of  their  own  ?  ’  ’ 3 

When  the  advantages  and  the  necessity  of  celibacy  thus  were 
doubted  by  the  highest  authorities  in  the  church,  it  is  no  wonder  if 
those  who  were  disposed  to  question  the  traditions  of  the  past  were 
led  to  reject  it  altogether.  In  1479  John  Burckhardt,  of  Oberwesel, 
graduate  of  Tubingen,  and  Doctor  of  Theology,  in  his  capacity  of 
preacher  at  Worms,  openly  disseminated  doctrines  which  differed  in 
the  main  but  little  from  those  of  Wickliffe  and  Huss.  He  denied 
the  authority  of  popes,  councils,  and  the  fathers  of  the  church  to 
regulate  matters  either  of  faith  or  discipline.  The  Scripture  was  the 


1  Sacerdotibus  magna  rati  one  sublatas 
nuptias,  majori  restituendas  videri. — 
Platina  in  Vit.  Pii  II. 


2  iEnea3  Sylvii  de  Concil.  Basil.  Lib. 
H. 

3  De  Continentia  Sacerdotum,  Nurnb. 
1510,  Prop.  6,  7. 


408 


THE  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


only  standard,  and  no  one  had  a  right  to  interpret  it  for  his  brethren. 
The  received  observances  of  religion,  prayers,  fasts,  indulgences, 
were  all  swept  away,  and  universal  liberty  of  conscience  proclaimed 
to  all.  Of  course,  sacerdotal  celibacy  shared  the  same  fate,  as  a 
superstitious  observance,  contrived  by  papal  ingenuity  in  opposition 
to  evangelical  simplicity.1  Thus  his  intrepid  logic  far  outstripped 
the  views  of  his  predecessors,  and  Luther  afterwards  acknowledged 
the  similarity  between  his  teachings  and  those  of  John  of  Oberwesel. 
Yet  he  had  not  the  spirit  of  martyrdom,  and  the  Inquisition  speedily 
forced  him  to  a  recantation,  which  was  of  little  avail,  for  he  soon 
after  perished  miserably  in  the  dungeon  in  which  he  had  been  thrust.2 

Still  more  remarkable  as  an  indication  of  the  growing  spirit  of  in¬ 
dependence  was  an  event  which  in  July,  1485,  disturbed  the  stagna¬ 
tion  of  the  centre  of  theological  orthodoxy — the  Sorbonne.  A 
certain  Jean  Laillier,  priest  and  licentiate  in  theology,  aspiring  to 
the  doctorate,  prepared  his  thesis  or  “  Sorbonique,”  in  which  he 
broached  various  propositions  savoring  strongly  of  extreme  Lollardry* 
He  denied  the  supremacy  of  the  pope,  and  indeed  reduced  the 
hierarchy  to  the  level  of  simple  priesthood ;  he  rejected  confession, 
absolution,  and  indulgences ;  he  refused  to  acknowledge  the  authority 
of  tradition  and  legends,  and  insisted  that  the  fasts  enjoined  by  the 
church  had  no  claim  to  observance.  Celibacy  was  not  likely  to 
escape  so  audacious  an  inquirer,  and  accordingly,  among  his  postu¬ 
lates  were  three,  declaring  that  a  priest  clandestinely  married 
required  no  penitence;  that  the  Eastern  clergy  committed  no  sin  in 
marrying,  nor  would  the  priests  of  the  Western  church,  if  they  were 
to  follow  the  example;  and  that  celibacy  originated  in  1073,  in  the 
decretals  of  Gregory  VII.,  whose  power  to  introduce  the  rule  he 
more  than  questioned.  The  Sorbonne,  as  might  be  anticipated, 
refused  the  doctorate  to  so  rank  a  heretic,  and  Laillier  had  the  bold¬ 
ness  not  only  to  preach  his  doctrines  publicly,  but  even  to  appeal  to 
the  Parlement  for  the  purpose  of  forcing  his  admission  to  the 
Sorbonne.  The  Parlement  referred  the  matter  to  the  Bishop  of 
Paris  and  to  the  Inquisitor;  Laillier’s  audacity  failed  him,  and  he 
agreed  to  recant.3  In  Poland,  too,  there  were  symptoms  of  similar 
revolt  against  the  established  ordinances  of  the  church,  as  shown 


1  Trithem.  Chron.  Ilirsaug.  ann.  1479. 

2  Serrarii  Hist.  Her.  Mogunt.  Lib.  I.  c.  34. 

3  Fleury,  Hist.  Eccles.  Liv.  cxvi.  No.  30-38. 


OPPOSITION  TO  CELIBACY. 


409 


in  a  book  published  at  Cracow  in  1504,  “De  Matrimonia  Sacer- 
do  turn. 5,1 

The  corruption  of  the  church  establishment,  in  fact,  had  reached 
a  point  which  the  dawning  enlightenment  of  the  age  could  not  much 
longer  endure.  The  power  which  had  been  intrusted  to  it,  when  it 
was  the  only  representative  of  culture  and  progress,  had  been  devoted 
to  selfish  purposes,  and  had  become  the  instrument  of  unmitigated 
oppression  in  all  the  details  of  daily  life.  The  immunity  which  had 
been  necessary  to  its  existence  through  centuries  of  anarchy  had 
become  the  shield  of  unimaginable  vices.  The  wealth,  so  freely 
lavished  upon  it  by  the  veneration  of  Christendom,  was  wasted  in 
the  vilest  excesses.  All  efforts  at  reformation  from  within  had  failed ; 
all  attempts  at  reformation  from  without  had  been  successfully 
crushed  and  sternly  punished.  Intoxicated  with  centuries  of  domin¬ 
ation,  the  muttered  thunders  of  growing  popular  discontent  were 
unheeded,  and  its  claims  to  spiritual  and  temporal  authority  were 
asserted  with  increasing  vehemence,  while  its  corruptions  were  daily 
displayed  before  the  people  with  more  careless  cynicism.  There 
appeared  to  be  no  desire  on  the  part  of  the  great  body  of  the  clergy 
to  make  even  a  pretence  of  the  virtue  and  piety  on  which  were 
based  their  claims  for  reverence,  while  the  laity  were  daily  growing 
less  reverent,  were  rising  in  intelligence,  and  were  becoming  more 
inclined  to  question  where  their  fathers  had  been  content  to  believe. 
Such  a  complication  could  have  but  one  result. 


1  Krasniski,  Reformation  in  Poland,  I.  110. 


XXY. 


THE  REFORMATION  IX  GERMANY. 


The  opening  of  the  sixteenth  century  witnessed  an  ominous 
breaking  down  of  the  landmarks  of  thought.  The  revival  of  letters, 
which  was  fast  rendering  learning  the  privilege  of  all  men  in  place 
of  the  special  province  of  the  legal  and  clerical  professions;  the  dis¬ 
covery  of  America,  which  destroyed  reverence  for  primaeval  tradition, 
and  accustomed  men’s  minds  to  the  idea  that  startling  novelties 
might  yet  be  truths ;  the  invention  of  printing,  which  placed  within 
the  reach  of  all  inquirers  who  had  a  tincture  of  education  the  sacred 
writings  for  investigation  and  interpretation  and  enabled  the  thinker 
and  the  innovator  at  once  to  command  an  audience  and  disseminate 
his  views  in  remote  regions;  the  European  wars,  commencing  with 
the  Neapolitan  conquest  of  Charles  VIII.,  which  brought  the  nations 
into  closer  contact  with  each  other,  and  carried  the  seeds  of  culture, 
civilization,  and  unbelief  from  Italy  to  the  farthest  Thule;  all  these 
causes,  with  others  less  notable,  had  been  silently  but  effectually 
wearing  out  the  remnants  of  that  pious  and  unquestioning  veneration 
which  for  ages  had  lain  like  a  spell  on  the  human  mind. 

In  this  bustling  movement  of  politics  and  commerce,  arts  and 
arms,  science  and  letters,  religion  could  not  expect  to  escape  the 
spirit  of  universal  inquiry.  Even  before  opinion  had  advanced  far 
enough  to  justify  examination  into  doctrinal  points  and  dogmas,  there 
was  a  general  readiness  to  regard  the  shortcomings  of  sacerdotalism, 
in  the  administration  of  its  sacred  trust,  with  a  freedom  of  criticism 
which  could  not  long  fail  to  destroy  the  respect  for  claims  of  irrefrag¬ 
able  authority.  John  of  England  and  the  Emperor  Otho  might 
gratify  individual  spite,  in  the  intoxication  of  anticipated  triumph, 
by  insultingly  defying  the  sacerdotal  power.  Philippe-le-Bcl,  a  man 
far  in  advance  of  his  age,  might  reduce  the  papacy  to  temporary 
subjection  by  means  of  rare  instruments  such  as  Guillaume  de 


REVOLT  AGAINST  THE  CHURCH. 


411 


Nogaret.  Philippe  de  Valois,  with  the  aid  of  his  civil  lawyers, 
might  essay  to  limit  the  extent  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction.  Wick- 
liffe,  and  Huss,  and  Savonarola  might  raise  the  standard  of  opposi¬ 
tion  to  papal  usurpation — but  these  were  sporadic  instances  of 
rebellion,  resulting  either  from  the  selfish  ambition  of  rulers  or  the 
fanatical  enthusiasm  of  individuals,  unsupported  by  the  concurrent 
opinion  of  the  masses  of  the  people,  and  their  permanent  results 
were  rather  remote  than  direct.  At  the  period  to  which  we  have 
arrived,  however,  the  disposition  to  criticise  the  abuses  of  the  eccle¬ 
siastical  system,  to  note  its  shortcomings,  and  to  apply  remedial 
measures  was  general,  and  savored  little  of  the  respect  which  an 
infallible  church  had  for  so  many  centuries  inculcated  as  one  of  the 
first  of  Christian  duties.  Its  past  services  were  forgotten  in  present 
wrongs.  Its  pretensions  had,  at  one  time,  enabled  it  to  be  the  pro¬ 
tector  of  the  feeble,  and  the  sole  defence  of  the  helpless ;  but  that 
time  had  passed.  Settled  institutions  were  fast  replacing  anarchy 
throughout  Europe,  and  its  all-pervading  authority  would  no  longer 
have  been  in  place,  even  if  exercised  for  the  common  benefit.  When 
it  was  notorious,  however,  that  the  powers  and  immunities  claimed 
by  the  church  were  everywhere  employed  for  the  vilest  ends,  their 
anachronism  became  too  palpable,  and  their  destruction  was  only  a 
question  of  time. 

Signs  of  the  coming  storm  were  not  wanting.  In  1510  a  series 
of  complaints  against  the  tyranny  and  extortion  of  Rome  wras  sol¬ 
emnly  presented  to  the  emperor.  The  German  churches,  it  was 
asserted,  were  confided  by  the  successors  of  St.  Peter  to  the  care  of 
those  who  were  better  fitted  to  be  keepers  of  mules  than  pastors  of 
men,  and  the  pope  was  significantly  told  that  he  should  act  more 
tenderly  and  kindly  to  his  children  of  Teutonic  race,  lest  there 
might  arise  a  persecution  against  the  priesthood,  or  a  general  defec¬ 
tion  from  the  Holy  See,  after  the  manner  of  the  Hussites.1  The 
emperor  was  warned,  in  his  efforts  to  obtain  the  desired  reform,  not 
to  incur  the  censures  and  enmity  of  the  pope,  in  terms  which  show 
that  only  the  political  effects  of  excommunication  were  dreaded,  and 
that  its  spiritual  thunders  had  lost  their  terrors.  He  was  further 
cautioned  against  the  prelates  in  general,  and  the  mendicant  friars 


1  Gravamina  German.  Nationis,  No. 
vii. — Remed.  contra  Gravamina  (Ere- 
her.  et  Struv.  II.  677-8). 


In  the  previous  century  some  remon¬ 
strances  against  grievances  had  been 
uttered,  but  in  a  very  different  tone 
from  this. 


412 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


in  particular,  in  a  manner  denoting  how  little  reverence  was  left  for 
them  in  the  popular  mind,  and  how  thoroughly  the  whole  ecclesi¬ 
astical  system  had  become  a  burden  and  reproach,  a  thing  of  the 
past,  an  excrescence  on  society,  and  no  longer  an  integral  part  of 
every  man’s  life,  and  the  great  motive  power  of  Christendom.1 

It  was  evident  that  the  age  was  rapidly  outstripping  the  church, 
and  that  the  latter,  to  maintain  its  influence  and  position,  must  con¬ 
form  to  the  necessities  of  progress  and  enlightenment.  On  previous 
occasions  it  had  done  so,  and  had,  with  marvellous  tact  and  readi¬ 
ness,  adapted  itself  to  the  exigencies  of  the  situation  in  the  long 
series  of  vicissitudes  which  had  ended  by  placing  it  supreme  over 
Europe.  But  centuries  of  almost  uninterrupted  prosperity  had 
hardened  it.  The  corruption  which  attends  upon  wealth  had  ren¬ 
dered  wealth  a  necessity,  and  that  wealth  could  only  he  had  by  per¬ 
petuating  and  increasing  the  abuses  which  caused  ominous  murmurs 
of  discontent  in  those  nations  not  fortunate  enough  to  he  defended 
by  Concordats  or  Pragmatic  Sanctions.  The  church  had  lost  its 
suppleness,  and  was  immovable.  A  reform  such  as  was  demanded, 
while  increasing  its  influence  over  the  souls  of  men,  would  have 
deprived  it  of  control  over  their  purses ;  reform  meant  poverty. 
The  sumter-mule  loaded  with  gold,  wrung  from  the  humble  pittance 
of  the  Westphalian  peasant,  under  pretext  of  prosecuting  the  war 
against  the  infidel,  would  no  longer  cross  the  Alps  to  stimulate  with 
its  treasure  the  mighty  genius  of  Michael  Angelo,  or  the  fascinating 
tenderness  of  Raphael ;  to  provide  princely  revenues  for  the  bastards 
of  a  pope,  or  to  pay  mercenaries  who  were  to  win  them  cities  and 
lordships ;  to  fill  the  antechamber  of  a  cardinal  with  parasites,  and 
to  deck  his  mistresses  wTith  the  silks  and  jewels  of  Ind;  to  feed  needy 
men  of  letters  and  scurrilous  poets ;  to  soothe  the  itching  palms  of 
the  Rota,  and  to  enable  all  Rome  to  live  on  the  tribute  so  cunningly 
exacted  of  the  barbarian.2  The  wretched  ending  of  the  council  of 


1  Avisamenta  ad  Caesar.  Majest. 
(Ibid.  p.  G80). 

2  When  Dietlier  was  elected  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Mainz,  in  1459,  his  envoys 
sent  to  obtain  his  confirmation  from 
Pius  II.  were  stupefied  with  a  demand 
for  20,506  florins — more  than  double  the 
amount  of  annates  previously  assessed 
on  the  see.  He  refused  to  yield  to  the 
demand,  but  by  a  little  sharp  practice 
between  the  Apostolic  Chamber  and 


the  Roman  bankers  he  became  en¬ 
tangled,  and  on  his  persistent  refusal 
he  was  prosecuted  for  the  amount,  de¬ 
posed  by  the  pope,  and  Adolph  of  Nas¬ 
sau  appointed  in  his  place,  leading  to  a 
bloody  war  and  the  devastation  of  city 
and  territory. — Appell.  Dom.  Dvtheri 
(Senckenberg.  Selecta  Juris  T.  IV.  p. 
393). — Cf.  Helwich  de  Dissidio  Mogun- 
tino  (Rer.  Moguntiac.  Script.  T.  II.). 
This  is  probably  the  fraud  alluded  to 
by  the  Diet  of  i  510,  where  it  was  com- 


PROGRESS  OF  INSUBORDINATION. 


413 


Bale  rendered  any  internal  reformation  impossible  which  did  not 
derive  its  initiative  and  inspiration  from  Borne,  as  was  shown  by  the 
failure  of  the  council  of  Pisa.  In  Borne,  it  would  have  required 
the  energy  of  Hildebrand,  the  stern  self-reliance  of  Innocent,  the 
unworldly  asceticism  of  Celestin  combined,  to  even  essay  a  reform 
which  threatened  destruction  so  complete  to  all  the  interests  accumu¬ 
lated  by  sacerdotalism  around  the  Eternal  City.  Leo  X.  was  neither 
Hildebrand,  nor  Innocent,  nor  Celestin.  With  his  voluptuous  nature, 
elegant  culture,  and  easy  temper,  it  is  no  wonder  that  he  failed  to 
read  aright  the  signs  of  the  times,  and  that  he  did  not  even  recog¬ 
nize  the  necessity  which  should  impose  upon  him  a  task  so  utterly 
beyond  his  powers.  The  fifth  council  of  Lateran  had  no  practical 
result.  Blindly  he  plunged  on;  money  must  be  had  at  any  cost, 
until  the  salvation  mongering  of  Tetzel,  little  if  any  worse  than  that 
of  his  predecessors,  could  no  longer  bear  the  critical  spirit  of  the 
age,  and  Teutonic  insubordination  at  length  found  a  mouth-piece  in 
the  Monk  of  Wittenberg. 

It  would  be  a  mistake  to  credit  Luther  with  the  Beformation. 
His  bold  spirit  and  masculine  character  gave  to  him  the  front  place, 
and  drew  around  him  the  less  daring  minds  who  were  glad  to  have 
a  leader  to  whom  to  refer  their  doubts,  and  on  whom  their  responsi¬ 
bility  might  partly  rest;  yet  Luther  was  but  the  exponent  of  a  public 
sentiment  which  had  long  been  gaining  strength,  and  which  in  any 
case  would  not  have  lacked  expression.  In  that  great  movement  of 
the  human  mind  he  was  not  the  cause,  but  the  instrument.  Had  his 


plained  that  the  annates  of  the  see  of 
Mainz  were  raised  from  10,000  florins 
to  25,000 ;  and  this  latter  sum  was  ex¬ 
acted  seven  times  in  one  generation, 
resulting  in  taxation  on  the  peasantry 
so  severe  that  an  insurrection  against 
the  clergy  was  threatened. — Remed. 
contra  Gravam.  (Freher.  et  Struv.  II. 
678). 

In  the  complaint  made  to  Adrian 
VI.,  in  1523,  by  the  Diet  of  Nurnberg, 
it  is  asserted  that  three  generals  of  the 
mendicant  orders  at  Rome  had  pur¬ 
chased  the  cardinalate  with  gold  wrung 
from  Germany. — Gravam.  Nationis 
German,  cap.  lxxiii. — ap.  Le  Plat, 
Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  II.  203. 

The  general  popular  opinion  of  the 
Roman  court  is  manifested  in  the  Epis- 
tolse  Obscurorum  Virorum,  when  speak¬ 
ing  of  the  quarrel  between  Reuchlin 
and  the  theologians,  which  had  been 


carried  before  the  papal  tribunal — “Si 
Papa  est  pro  theologi,  tunc  non  timeo; 
etiam  audivi  ab  uno  notabili  viro,  qui 
est  officialis  curiae,  qui  dixit.  Quid 
nobis  hie  cum  literis  ?  Si  Reuchlin 
habet  pecuniam,  mittat  hue :  quia  in 
curia  oportet  habere  pecunias,  alias 
nihil  potest  expedire.” 

That  this  estimate  of  the  papal  curia 
was  shared  by  the  orthodox  is  shown 
in  the  story  told  of  Pierre  Danes, 
Bishop  of  Vaur,  who  in  1545  was  sent 
as  ambassador  by  Francis  I.  to  the 
Council  of  Trent.  In  debate  a  French 
theologian  was  inveighing  against  the 
corruptions  of  the  Rota,  when  an  Italian 
ecclesiastic  sneeringly  cried  out,  “  Gal- 
lus  cantat.”  Danes  promptly  rejoined, 
“  Utinam  illo  gallicinio  Petrus  ad  resi- 
piscentiam  et  fletum  excitetur.” — Le 
Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  VII. 
224. 


414 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


great  opponent  Erasmus  enjoyed  the  physical  vigor  and  practical 
boldness  of  Luther,  he  would  have  been  handed  down  as  the  heresi- 
arch  of  the  sixteenth  century.1  He,  too,  had  borne  his  full  share 
in  preparing  the  minds  of  men  for  what  was  to  come.  The  whole 
structure  of  sacerdotalism  felt  the  blows  of  his  irreverential  spirit, 
which  boldly  declared  that  the  Scriptures  alone  contained  what  was 
necessary  to  salvation.2  Theological  subtleties  and  priestly  observ¬ 
ances  were  alike  useless  or  worse  than  useless.  For  the  living,  it 
was  idle  to  attend  mass ;  for  the  dead,  it  was  folly  to  look  to  such  a 
means  for  extrication  from  purgatory.3  The  confessional  was  to  be 
visited  only  as  a  for  ral  prerequisite  to  partaking  the  Eucharist;4 
pilgrimages  and  the  /eneration  of  relics  were  ridiculed  with  a  reck¬ 
less  freedom  which  showed  that  the  advance  of  enlightenment  had 
utterly  destroyed  the  reverence  of  the  past.5  Nothing,  indeed,  can 
give  us  a  more  thorough  conviction  of  the  readiness  of  the  public  to 
welcome  a  radical  change  than  the  wealth  of  indignant  bitterness 
which  Erasmus,  himself  a  canon  regular  and  a  priest,  heaps  upon  all 
orders  of  the  church,  and  the  immense  applause  which  everywhere 
greeted  his  attacks.  His  sarcastic  humor,  his  biting  satire,  his  ex¬ 
quisite  ridicule,  nowhere  find  a  more  congenial  subject  than  the 
vices  of  the  monks,  the  priests,  the  prelates,  the  cardinals,  and  even 
of  the  pope  himself,  until  even  Luther,  as  late  as  1517,  feels  con- 


1  The  Epist.  Obscur.  Viror.  probably 

reflects  the  general  sentiment  of  the 
conservatives  of  the  time  in  denounc¬ 
ing  Erasmus  and  the  learned  wits  as 
heretics.  “Quia  juvenes  volunt  se 
cequiparare  senibus,  et  discipuli  magis- 
tris,  et  juristoe  theologis,  et  est  magna 
confusio,  et  surgunt  multi  hieretici  et 
pseudochristiani,  Iohann.  lieuchlin, 
Erasmus  Roterodamus :  Bilibaldus 

nescio  quis,  et  Ulricus  Huttenus,  Her- 
mannus  Buschius,  Jacobus  Wimphe- 
lingus,  qui  scripsit  contra  Augusti- 
nenses,  et  Sebastianus  Brandt,  qui 
scripsit  contra  prsedicatores,  etc.” 

So,  at  a  later  date,  after  Luther  had 
arisen,  the  “  Conciliabulum  Theologis- 
tarum  ”  classes  them  together  “  Habeo 
etiam  ego  unum  spiritum  familiarem; 
ilium  ego  volo  mittere  ad  Lutherum  et 
Erasmum  de  nocte  in  lectum,  ut  eos 
tribulet  et  vexet.” 

2  Erasmi  Colloq.  Confabulatio  Pia. 

3  Ibid.  See  also  the  Encomium 

Mori:e. — “  Nam  quid  dicam  de  i is  qui 

sibi  fictis  scelerum  condonationibus 


suavissime  blandiuntur,  ac  purgatorii 
spatia  veluti  clepsydris  metiuntur,  se- 
cula,  annos,  menses,  dies,  horas,  tan- 
quam  e  tabula  mathematica  citra  ullum 
errorem  dimentientes  ?” 

4  Confabulatio  Pia  (Colloquia). 

5  Speaking  of  the  Virgin’s  milk  and 
the  countless  relics  of  the  cross  every¬ 
where  exposed  to  the  adoration  of  the 
pious,  he  exclaims,  “0  matrem  filio 
simillimam !  ille  nobis  tantum  sangui¬ 
nis  reliquit  in  terris  ;  haec  tantum  lactis 
quantum  vix  credibile  est  esse  posse  uni 
mulieri  unipane,  etiamsi  nihil  bibisset 
infans  ....  Idem  caussantur  de  cruce 
Domini,  quae  privatum  ac  publice  tot 
locis  ostenditur,  ut  si  fragmenta  con- 
ferantur  in  unum,  navis  onerariae  jus- 
tum  onus  videri  possint;  et  tamen 
totam  crucem  suam  bajulavit  Domi- 
nus” —  to  which  he  makes  a  pious 
interlocutor  reply,  “  Novum  fortasse 
dici  possit;  mirum  nequaquam,  quum 
Dominus,  qui  haec  auget  pro  suo  nrbi- 
trio,  sit  omnipotens.”  —  Colloq.  Pere- 
grinat.  lieligionis. 


ERASMUS  AND  YON  HUTTEN. 


415 


strained  to  deplore  that  the  evils  which  afflicted  the  church  should 
he  thus  exposed  to  derision.1  It  affords  a  curious  illustration  of  the 
times  to  read  those  writings  which  a  century  earlier  would  have  con¬ 
signed  him  to  the  dungeon  or  the  stake,  and  to  reflect  that  he  was 
not  only  the  admiration  of  both  the  learned  and  the  vulgar  of  Europe, 
but  also  the  petted  protege  of  king  and  kaisar,  the  correspondent  of 
popes,  and  finally  the  champion  of  the  system  which  he  had  so  ruth¬ 
lessly  reviled,  and  which  he  never  ceased  to  deplore.2  The  extra¬ 
ordinary  favor  with  which  his  works  were  received  by  all  classes 
shows  how  fully  he  was  justified  in  the  indignation  which  he  so  un¬ 
sparingly  lavished  on  clerical  abuses,  and  how  eagerly  the  public 
appreciated  one  who  could  so  well  express  that  which  was  felt  by  all. 
Equally  significant  was  the  popularity  of  the  “  Epistolae  Obscurorum 
Virorum,”  in  which  the  learned  wits  of  the  new  school  poured  forth 
upon  the  clergy  a  broad  and  homely  ridicule  which  exactly  suited 
the  taste  of  the  age;3  while  Cornelius  Agrippa  more  than  rivalled 


1  Supplement.  Epist.  M.  Lutheri,  j 
No.  II.  (Hales,  1703). 

2  The  popular  view  of  the  priesthood 
is  well  summed  up  by  Erasmus  in  the 
following  dialogue:  “Cocles,  Cur 
mavis  sacerdotium  quam  uxorem  ? — 
Pamphagus,  Quia  mihi  placet  otium. 
Arridet  Epicurea  vita.  —  Co.  At  mea 
sententia  suavius  vivunt,  quibus  est 
lepida  puella  domi,  quam  complectan- 
tur,  quoties  libet.  —  Pam.  Sed  adde, 
nonnunquam  quum  non  libet.  Amo 
voluptatem  perpetuam.  Qui  ducit 
uxorem,  uno  mense  felix  est:  cui  con- 
tingit  optimum  sacerdotium,  in  om- 
nem  usque  vitam  fruitur  gaudio. — 
Co.  Sed  tristis  est  solitudo,  adeo  ut 
nec  Adam  suaviter  victurus  fuerit  in 
Paradiso  nisi  deus  illi  adjunxisset 
Evam. — Pam.  Non  deerit  Eva  cui  sit 
opulentum  sacerdotium,”  etc. — Erasmi 
Colloq.  de  Captandis  Sacerdotiis. 

It  is,  however,  perhaps,  in  the  “  En¬ 
comium  Moriae”  that  he  gives  fullest 
rein  to  his  hitter  satire.  His  own  sad 
experience  of  conventual  life  gave 
him  special  opportunity  of  declaiming 
against  the  monks  “qui  se  vulgo  religi- 
osos  ac  monachos  appellant,  utroque 
falsissimo  cognomine,  quum  et  bona 
pars  istorum  longissime  absit  a  religi- 
one,  et  nulli  magis  omnibus  locis  sint 
obvii.”  Their  habit,  their  observances, 
their  discipline,  their  ignorance,  idle¬ 
ness,  vices,  are  recounted  at  great 
length  and  with  the  most  stinging 


ridicule,  and  he  makes  Folly  dismiss 
them  with  the  contemptuous  valedic¬ 
tion,  “  Verum  ego  istos  histriones,  tarn 
ingratos  beneficiorum  meorum  dissimu- 
latores  quam  improbos  simulatores  pie- 
tatis  libenter  relinquo.”  The  secular 
priesthood,  the  bishops,  and  even  the 
pope  himself,  are  treated  with  little 
more  respect,  and  every  class  of  the 
ecclesiastical  body  is  stigmatized  as 
endeavoring  to  thrust  upon  others  the 
care  of  the  flock  and  industrious  only 
in  shearing  the  sheep. 

The  “Encomium  Morise  ”  had  an 
immediate  and  immense  success. 
Numberless  editions  were  required  to 
supply  the  avidity  of  the  learned, 
and  it  was  immediately  translated 
into  almost  every  language  of  Europe 
for  the  benefit  of  the  unlearned.  It 
appeared  in  1509 ;  the  Colloquies  in 
1516. — When  these  works  had  pro¬ 
duced  their  result,  their  dangerous 
tendencies  were  discovered,  and  they 
enjoyed  the  honor  of  being  included 
in  the  first  Index  Expurgatorius  (App. 
Concil.  Trident).  Cardinal  Carafia, 
indeed,  in  1538,  had  urged  upon  Paul 
III.  the  propriety  of  excluding  the 
Colloquies  from  use  in  schools  as  a 
text-book  for  students.  —  Concil.  de 
Emend.  Eccles.  (Le  Plat,  Monument. 
Concil.  Trident.  II.  602). 

3  The  “  Epistolas  Obscurorum  Viro¬ 
rum  ”  was  certainly  published  before 
1516,  probably  in  1515  (Ebert,  Bib- 


416 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


Erasmus  in  the  wealth  of  vigorous  denunciation  with  which  he 
lashed  the  vices  of  all  the  orders  of  ecclesiastics,  from  the  pope  to 
the  beguine.1 

Not  less  indicative  of  the  dangerous  state  of  opinion  was  an 
address  delivered  in  the  Diet  held  at  Augsburg  in  1518,  when  the 
legates  of  Leo  X.  appealed  to  Germany  for  a  tithe  to  assist  in  carry¬ 
ing  on  the  war  against  the  Turk.  The  orator  who  replied  to  them 
did  not  restrain  his  indignation  at  the  deplorable  condition  of  the 
church,  which  he  attributed  solely  to  the  worldly  ambition  of  the 
popes.  Since  they  had  united  temporal  with  spiritual  dominion — 
or,  rather,  since  they  had  allowed  temporal  interests  to  divert  them 
wholly  from  their  spiritual  duties — all  had  gone  amiss.  Christendom 
was  despoiled  from  without,  and  filled  with  tumult  within.  Religion 
was  openly  contemned ;  Christ  was  daily  bought  and  sold ;  the  sheep 
were  shorn,  and  the  pastor  took  no  care  of  them.  He  did  not  even 
hesitate  to  charge,  with  emphasis  and  at  much  detail,  that  the  money 
extorted  from  Germany  under  pious  pretexts  was  squandered  in 
Italy  on  the  private  quarrels  and  for  the  aggrandizement  of  the 
papal  houses,  and  those  of  the  members  of  the  sacred  college.2  All 
other  nations  were  protected  from  papal  rapacity  and  tyranny  by 
formal  agreements.  Germany  alone  was  surrendered  defenceless, 
and  not  only  were  her  bishops  plundered  but  even  the  smallest 
benefice  could  not  be  confirmed  without  the  recipient  running  the 
gauntlet  of  a  horde  of  officials  whose  exactions  forced  him  to  sell  the 
very  furniture  of  his  church.  As  the  rules  of  law  and  the  dictates  of 
justice  were  equally  disregarded,  the  popular  sentiment  was  becoming 
openly  hostile  to  the  church.3  A  state  of  feeling  which  dictated  and 
permitted  such  a  declaration  from  the  supreme  representative  body 
of  the  empire,  when  brought  into  collision  with  the  pretensions  of 
the  Holy  See,  now  more  exaggerated  than  ever,  could  have  but  one 
result — Revolution. 


liog.  Diet.  s.  v.). — It  is  equally  severe 
upon  the  monks — “Tunc  ille  dixit: 
ego  distinguo  de  monachis,  quia  ac¬ 
cipiuntur  tribus  modis.  Primo,  pro 
sanctis  et  utilibus,  sed  illi  sunt  in 
ccelo.  Secundo,  pro  nec  utilibus  nec 
inutilibus,  et  illi  sunt  picti  in  eccle- 
sia.  Tertio  modo  pro  illis  qui  adhuc 
vivunt,  et  illi  multis  nocent,  etiam 
non  sunt  sancti,  quia  ita  superbi  sunt 
sicut  unus  saecularium.  Et  ita  liben- 
ter  habent  pecunias  et  pulchras  mu- 
lieres,”  etc.  And  again,  “  Ubi  enim 


diabolus  pervenire  vel  aliquid  officere 
non  potest,  ibi  semper  mittit  unam 
malam  antiquam  vetulam  vel  unum 
monachum.” 

1  De  Yanitate  Scientiarum  cap.  lxi., 
lxii. ,  lxiv. 

2  Orat.  in  Comit.  Augustan.  (Freher. 
et  Struv.  II.  702.) 

3  Bartholini  Comment,  de  Comit. 
Augustens.  ann.  1518  (Senckenberg. 
Sclecta  Juris  T.  IV.  pp.  669-70). 


luther’s  hesitation. 


417 


With  all  this  licefise  Germany  was  still,  by  the  force  of  circum¬ 
stances,  less  independent  of  the  papacy  than  any  other  Tramontane 
power.  What  was  going  on  elsewhere  in  Europe  may  be  guessed  from 
the  humiliating  conditions  exacted  in  1517  of  Silvester  Darius,  the 
papal  collector,  on  his  assuming  the  functions  of  his  important  office 
in  England.  He  bound  himself  by  oath  not  to  execute  any  letters 
or  mandates  of  the  pope  injurious  to  the  king,  the  kingdom,  or  the 
laws ;  not  to  transmit  from  England  to  Rome,  without  a  special  royal 
license,  any  gold,  or  silver,  or  bills  of  exchange;  not  to  leave  the 
kingdom  himself  without  a  special  license  under  the  great  seal ;  with 
other  less  notable  restrictions,  the  practical  effect  of  all  being  to  place 
him  and  his  duties  wholly  under  the  control  of  the  king.1  The 
position  of  England  had  changed  since  the  days  of  Innocent  and 
John.  Had  the  dissensions  of  Germany  permitted  equal  progress, 
Luther  might  perhaps  have  only  been  known  as  an  obscure  but 
learned  orthodox  doctor,  and  the  inevitable  revolt  of  half  of  Chris¬ 
tendom  have  been  postponed  for  a  century. 


It  is  not  my  province  to  follow  in  detail  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
Reformation,  but  only  to  indicate  briefly  its  relations  with  sacerdotal 
asceticism.  Luther,  at  first,  like  Wickliffe  and  Huss,  paid  no  atten¬ 
tion  to  the  subject.  In  fact,  when,  on  the  31st  of  October,  1.217, 
he  nailed  on  the  church  door  of  Wittenberg  his  celebrated  ninety- 
five  propositions,  nothing  was  further  from  his  expectations  than  to 
create  a  heresy,  a  schism,  or  even  a  general  reform  in  the  church. 
He  had  simply  in  view  to  vindicate  his  ideas  on  the  subject  of  justi¬ 
fication,  derived  from  St.  Augustin,  against  the  Thomist  doctrines 
which  had  been  exaggerated  into  the  monstrous  abuses  of  Tetzel  and 
his  fellows.2  In  the  general  movement  of  the  human  mind  at  that 
period  so  much  had  been  said  that  was  inimical  to  the  received 
practices  of  the  church,  without  calling  forth  the  thunders  of  Rome, 
that  men  seemed  to  think  the  day  of  toleration  had  at  last  come. 


-  (5\c\ 


J&S L 


fv 


5j 


1  Rymer,  Fcedera  XIII.  586-7. 

2  Even  in  this,  Luther  was  by  no 
means  the  first.  Erasmus  had  exposed 
the  wickedness  of  the  system  with  fully 
as  much  fervor  in  the  “Encomium 
Moyiae.” — “Hie  mihi  puta  negotiator 
aliquis,  aut  miles,  aut  judex,  abjecto  ex 
tot  rapinis  unico  nummulo,  universam 
vitas  Lernam  semel  expurgatam  putat, 


totque  perjuria,  tot  libidines,  tot  eb- 
rietates,  tot  rixas,  tot  casdes,  tot  im- 
posturas,  tot  perfidias,  tot  proditiones 
existimat  velut  ex  pacto  redimi,  et  ita 
redimi  ut  jam  liceatad  novum  scelerum 
orbem  de  integro  reverti.” — And  in  the 
“Epistolae  Obscurorum  Vivorum  ”  the 
falseness  of  its  promises  was  unflinch¬ 
ingly  asserted. 


27 


418 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


The  hierarchy  sat  serenely  upon  their  thrones  and  in  the  confidence 
of  unassailable  power  appeared  willing  to  allow  any  freedom  of 
speculation  which  did  not  assail  their  temporal  privileges.  Yet  amid 
the  general  agitation  and  opposition  to  Rome  which  pervaded  society, 
it  was  impossible  for  a  bold  and  self-reliant  spirit  such  as  Luther’s 
not  to  advance  step  by  step  in  a  career  of  which  the  ultimate  goal 
was  as  little  foreseen  by  himself  as  by  others.  Still  his  progress  was 
wonderfully  slow.  Even  in  1519  he  still  considered  himself  within 
the  pale  of  the  church,  and  held  that  no  wrong  committed  by  her 
could  justify  a  separation  or  excuse  any  resistance  to  the  commands 
of  a  pope ; 1  and  in  the  same  year,  in  a  sermon  on  matrimony,  he 
alluded  not  unfavorably  to  the  life  of  virginity.2  Events  soon  after 
forced  him  to  further  and  more  dangerous  innovations,  yet  when 
LeoX.,  in  June,  1520,  issued  his  celebrated  bull,  “  Exsurge  Domine” 
to  CFush  the  rising  heresy,  in  the  forty-one  errors  enumerated  as 
taught  by  Luther,  there  is  no  allusion  to  any  doctrine  specially 
inimical  to  ascetic  celibacjh3 

This  condemnation,  followed  as  it  was  by  the  public  burning  of 
his  writings,  aroused  Luther  to  a  more  active  and  aggressive  hostility 
than  he  had  previously  manifested,  In  his  book  “  De  Captivitate 
Babylonica  Ecclesise”  he  attacked  the  sacrament  of  ordination, 
denied  that  it  separated  the  priest  from  his  fellows,  and  ridiculed  the 
rule  concerning  digami,  which  excluded  from  the  priesthood  a 
man  who  had  been  the  husband  of  any  but  a  virgin,  while  another 
who  had  polluted  himself  with  six  hundred  concubines  was  eligible  to 
the  episcopate  or  papacy.4  Finally  on  Dec.  10th,  1520,  he  pro¬ 
claimed  war  to  the  knife  by  burning  at  Wittenberg  the  books  of  the 
canon  law'  and  justifying  this  act  by  a  manifesto  recapitulating  the 
damnable  doctrines  contained  in  them.  Among  these  he  enumerates 
the  prohibition  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  as  the  origin  and  cause  of 
excessive  vice  and  scandal.5  As  he  said  himself,  hitherto  he  had 
only  been  playing  at  controversy  with  the  Pope,  but  this  was  the 
beginning  of  the  tragedy.6  Soon  after  this,  in  a  controversy  with 
Ambrogio  Catarino,  he  stigmatized  the  rule  of  celibacy  as  angelical  in 


1  Ranke,  Reformation  in  Germany, 
B.  ii.  chap.  3. 

2  Lutheri  Opp.  T.  I.  fol.  335a  (Jenae> 
1564). 

3  Mag.  Bull.  Roman.  Ed.  1692,  I. 

614. 


4  De  Captiv.  Babylon.  Eccles.  (Lu¬ 
theri  Opp.  Jense,  1581,  II.  fol.  283a). 

5  Artie,  et  Errores  Libb.  Jur.  Canon. 
No.  18  (Lutheri  Opp.  Jeme,  1581,  II. 
fol.  318a). 

6  Ibid.  fol.  3195. 


SACERDOTAL  MARRIAGE  COMMENCED. 


419 


appearance,  but  devilish  in  reality,  and  invented  by  Satan  as  a  fertile 
source  of  sin  and  perdition.1 

In  the  mighty  movement  which  was  agitating  men’s  minds,  Luther 
had  been  anticipated  in  this.  As  early  as  1518,  a  monk  of  Dantzic 
named  James  Knade,  abandoned  his  order,  married,  and  publicly 
preached  resistance  to  Lome.  It  is  evident  that  in  this  he  had  the 
support  of  the  people,  for  though  he  was  imprisoned  and  tried  by  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities,  the  only  punishment  inflicted  on  him  was 
banishment.2  In  the  multitude  of  other  questions  more  interesting 
to  the  immediate  disputants  this  point  of  discipline  seems  to  have 
attracted  but  little  attention  until  1521,  when  during  Luther’s 
enforced  seclusion  in  Wartburg,  Bartholomew  Bernhardi,  pastor  of 
Kammerich,  near  Wittenberg,  put  the  heresiarch’s  views  into  action 
in  the  most  practical  way  by  obtaining  the  consent  of  his  parish  and 
celebrating  his  nuptials  with  all  due  solemnity.  Albert,  Archbishop 
of  Mainz  and  Magdeburg,  addressed  to  Frederic,  Elector  of  Saxony, 
a  demand  for  the  rendition  of  the  culprit,  which  that  prudent  patron 
of  the  Leformation  skilfully  eluded,  and  Bernhardi  published  a  short 
defence  or  apology  in  which  he  denounced  the  rule  of  celibacy  as  a 
“frivolam  traditiunculam.”  He  argued  the  matter,  quoting  the  texts 
which  since  his  time  have  been  generally  employed  in  support  of 
sacerdotal  marriage;  he  referred  to  Peter  and  Philip,  Spiridon  of 
Cyprus,  and  Hilary  of  Poitiers,  as  examples  of  married  bishops, 
quoted  the  story  of  Paphnutius,  and  relied  on  the  authority  of  the 
Greek  church.  This  apparently  did  not  satisfy  the  archbishop,  for 
Bernhardi  felt  obliged  to  address  a  second  apology  to  Frederic  of 
Saxony,  to  whom  he  appealed  for  protection  against  the  displeasure 
of  his  ecclesiastical  superiors.3  In  spite  of  molestation,  he  continued 
in  the  exercise  of  his  priestly  functions  until  death.  Less  fortunate 
were  his  immediate  imitators.  A  priest  of  Mansfeld  who  took  to 
himself  a  wife  was  thrown  into  prison  at  Halle  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Mainz,  and  Jacob  Siedeler,  pastor  of  Glashiitten,  in  Misnia,  who 
was  guilty  of  the  same  crime,  perished  miserably  in  the  dungeon  of 
Stolpen,  to  which  he  was  committed  by  Duke  George  of  Saxony.4 

The  enthusiastic  Carlostadt,  relieved  for  the  time  from  the  restraint 
of  Luther’s  cooler  wisdom,  threw  himself  with  zeal  into  this  new 


1  Ibid.  fol.  362a,  374a.  2  Krasinski,  op.  cit.  I.  112-3. 

3  Lutheri  Opp.  Jense,  1581,  T.  II.  fol.  438,  440. 

4  Spalatin.  Annal.  ann.  1521. 


420 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


movement  of  reform,  and  lost  no  time  in  justifying  it  by  a  treatise  in 
which  he  argued  strenuously  in  favor  of  priestly  marriage,  and  ener¬ 
getically  denounced  the  monastic  vows  as  idle  and  vain.  Luther, 
however,  in  his  retreat,  seems  not  yet  prepared  to  take  any  very 
decided  position.  In  a  letter  of  Jan.  17th,  1522,  to  Wolfgang 
Fabricius  Capito,  one  of  the  officials  of  the  Archbishop  of  Mainz,  he 
takes  the  latter  severely  to  task  with  respect  to  his  action  in  a  case 
of  the  kind — probably  that  of  the  priest  of  Mansfeld  alluded  to 
above.  The  man  had  been  set  at  liberty,  but  forced  to  separate  him¬ 
self  from  his  wife,  and  Capito  had  defended  himself  on  the  ground 
that  the  woman  was  a  harlot.  Luther  asks  him  why  he  had  been  so 
earnest  with  a  single  strumpet,  when  he  had  taken  no  action  with  so 
many  under  his  jurisdiction  in  Halberstadt,  Mainz,  and  Magdeburg, 
and  adds  that  when  the  priest  had  acknowledged  the  woman  as  his 
wife  there  should  have  been  nothing  further  done.  He  proceeds  to 
say,  however,  that  he  does  not  ask  for  the  freedom  of  sacerdotal 
marriage,  and  that  he  is  not  prepared  to  take  any  general  position 
concerning  it,  except  that  it  is  lawful  under  God.1  Either  with  or 
without  his  approbation,  however,  his  friends  lost  no  time  in  enforc¬ 
ing  the  new  dogma  wrhich  they  proclaimed  to  the  world  in  the  most 
authoritative  manner.  Luring  the  same  year  Luther’s  own  Augus- 
tinian  order  held  a  provincial  synod  at  Wittenberg,  in  which  they 
formally  threw  open  the  doors  of  the  monasteries,  and  permitted  all 
who  desfred  it  to  return  to  the  world,  declaring  that  in  Christ  there 
was  no  distinction  between  Jew  and  Greek,  monk  and  layman,  and 
that  a  vow  in  opposition  to  the  gospel  was  no  vow,  but  an  impiety. 
Ceremonies,  observances,  and  dress  were  pronounced  futile ;  those 
who  chose  to  abide  by  the  established  rule  were  free  to  do  so,  but 
their  preferences  were  not  to  be  a  law  to  their  fellows.  Those  who 
were  fitted  for  preaching  the  word  were  advised  to  depart ;  those  who 
remained  were  obliged  to  perform  the  manual  labor  which  had  been 
so  prominent  a  portion  of  primaeval  Teutonic  monasticism,  and 
mendicancy  was  strictly  forbidden.  In  a  few  short  and  simple 
canons  a  radical  rebellion  thus  declared  itself  in  the  heart  of  an 
ancient  and  powerful  order,  and  principles  were  promulgated  which 
were  totally  at  variance  with  sacerdotalism  in  all  its  protean  forms.2 


1  Lutheri  Epistt.  Jense,  1545,  T.  II.  fol.  38,  39. 

2  Synod.  Vuitemberg.  (Lutheri  Opp.  II.  470). 


INCREASE  OF  SACERDOTAL  MARRIAGE. 


421 


This  broad  spirit  of  toleration  did  not  suit  the  views  of  the  more 
progressive  reformers.  In  Luther’s  own  Augustinian  convent  at 
Wittenberg,  one  of  his  most  zealous  adherents,  Gabriel  Zwilling, 
preached  against  monachism  in  general,  taking  the  ground  that  sal- 
vation  required  the  renunciation  of  their  vows  by  all  who  had  been 
ensnared  into  assuming  the  cowl ;  and  so  great  was  his  success  that 
thirteen  monks  at  once  abandoned  the  convent.  Yet  even  on  Lu¬ 
ther’s  return  to  Wittenberg,  he  at  first  took  no  part  in  the  movement. 
He  retained  his  Augustinian  habit,  and  continued  his  residence  in 
the  convent ;  but  before  the  close  of  the  year  (1522)  he  put  forth 
his  work,  “  De  Yotis  Monasticis,”  in  which  he  fully  and  finally 
adopted  the  views  of  his  friends,  and  showed  himself  as  an  uncom¬ 
promising  enemy  of  monasticism.1  How  difficult  it  was  for  him, 
however,  to  shake  off  the  habitudes  in  which  he  had  been  trained  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that,  even  at  the  end  of  1523,  he  still  sometimes 
preached  in  his  cowl  and  sometimes  without  it.2 

Notwithstanding  the  zealous  opposition  of  the  orthodox  ecclesi¬ 
astical  authorities,  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  Wittenberg  were  not 
long  in  finding  earnest  defenders  and  imitators.  But  few  such  mar¬ 
riages,  it  is  true,  are  recorded  in  1522,  although  Balthazar  Sturmius, 
an  Augustinian  monk  of  Saxony,  committed  the  bolder  indiscretion 
of  marrying  a  widow  of  Franconia.  In  that  year,  however,  we  find 
Franz  von  Sickingen,  knight-errant  and  condottiero,  who  was  then 
a  power  in  the  state,  advocating  the  emancipation  and  marriage  of 
the  religious  orders,  in  a  letter  to  his  father-in-law,  Diedrich  von 
Henthschuchsfieym.  Still  more  important  was  the  movement  in¬ 
augurated  in  Switzerland  by  Ulrich  Zwingli,  who,  with  ten  other 
monks  of  Notre-Dame-des-Hermites,  on  the  2d  of  July,  1522, 
addressed  to  Hugo  von  Hohenlandemberg,  Bishop  of  Constance,  a 
petition  requesting  the  privilege  of  marriage.  The  petitioners  boldly 
argued  the  matter,  citing  the  usual  Scriptural  authorities,  and  adjured 
the  bishop  in  the  most  pressing  terms  to  grant  their  request.  They 
warned  him  that  a  refusal  might  entail  ruinous  disorders  on  the  whole 
sajserdotal  body,  and  that,  unless  he  seized  the  opportunity  to  guide 
the  movement,  it  might  speedily  assume  a  most  disastrous  shape. 


1  Lutheri  Opp.  II.  477  sqq. — In  this 
edition  the  tract  is  dated  1522  in  the 
index  and  1521  in  the  text.  Henke  and 
Ranke,  however,  agree  in  assigning  it 
to  a  period  subsequent  to  his  return  from 
W  artburg. 


2  Spalatin.  Annal.  ann.  1523. — The 
fact  that  Spalatin  recorded  whether  he 
wore  the  cowl  or  not,  shows  the  impor¬ 
tance  which  Luther’s  friends  attached 
to  his  example  with  respect  to  it. 


422 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


They  asserted,  indeed,  that  not  only  in  Switzerland,  but  elsewhere, 
it  was  generally  believed  that  a  majority  of  ecclesiastics  had  already 
chosen  their  future  wives,  and  that  a  return  to  the  old  order  of  things 
was  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  accomplish.1 

In  this  assertion,  Zwingli  and  his  companions  followed  perhaps 
rather  the  dictates  of  their  hopes  than  of  their  judgment,  for  the 
revolution  was  by  no  means  as  universal  or  immediate  as  their  threats 
or  warnings  would  indicate.  Its  progress,  nevertheless,  wTas  rapid 
and  decided.  Luther,  whom  we  have  seen,  in  the  earlier  part  of 
1522,  still  giving  but  a  qualified  assent  to  the  daring  innovation  of 
his  followers,  in  February,  1523,  wrote  to  Spalatin  in  favor  of  a 
married  pastor  who  was  seeking  preferment  at  the  hands  of  the 
Elector  Frederic;2  and  in  April,  1523,  he  himself  officiated  and 
preached  a  sermon  in  favor  of  matrimony  to  a  multitude  of  distin¬ 
guished  friends  at  the  wedding  of  Wenceslas  Link,  vicar  of  the 
Augustinian  order,  one  of  his  oldest  and  most  valued  supporters, 
who  had  stood  unflinchingly  by  him  when  arraigned  by  Cardinal 
Caietano  before  the  Emperor  Maximilian  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg.3 
Not  less  important  was  the  countenance  given  to  the  innovation,  two 
days  later,  by  the  Elector  Frederic,  who  consented  to  act  as  sponsor 
at  the  baptism  of  the  first-born  of  Franz  Gunther,  pastor  of  Loch;4 
the  ceremony  being  performed  by  the  honest  chronicler  Spalatin 
himself. 

It  is  curious  to  see  in  Spalatin’s  diary  how  each  successive  mar¬ 
riage  is  recorded  as  a  matter  of  the  utmost  interest,  the  hopes  of  the 
reformers  being  strengthened  by  every  accession  to  the  ranks  of  those 
who  dared  to  defy  the  rules  which  had  been  deemed  irreversible  for 
centuries.  Nor  was  it  an  act  without  danger,  for  no  open  rupture 
had  as  yet  taken  place  between  the  temporal  power  of  any  state  and 


1  Spalatin.  Annal.  ann.  1522. 

2  Supplement.  Epistt.  HVI.  Lutheri 
No.  31  (Hal®,  1703). 

3  Spalatin.  Annal.  ann.  1523.  — 
Thammii  Chron.  Colditens. — Link  mar¬ 
ried  a  daughter  of  Suicer,  a  lawyer  of 
Oldenburg  in  Misnia,  and  the  bride’s 
example  was  shortly  afterwards  followed 
by  her  two  sisters,  one  of  whom  was 
united  to  Wolfgang  Fuess,  parish  priest 
of  Kolditz,  and  formerly  a  monk  of 

Gera ;  while  the  other  accepted  the 
addresses  of  the  parish  priest  of  Kitsch- 
eren.  (Spalatin,  ubi  sup.) 


4  Spalatin,  ubi  sup. — How  these  in¬ 
novations  were  regarded  in  Rome  is 
manifested  in  a  minatory  epistle  ad¬ 
dressed,  in  1522,  by  Adrian  II.  to  the 
Elector  Frederic  of  Saxony.  “  Et  cum 
ipse  sit  apostata  ac  professionis  suae 
desertor,  ut  plurimos  sui  faciat  similes, 
sancta  ilia  Deo  vasa  polluere  non  veretur, 
consecratasque  virgines  et  vitam  monas- 
ticam  professas  extrahere  a  monasteriis 
suis,  et  mundo  imo  diabolo,  quern  semel 
abjuraverunt,  reddere  .  .  .  Christi 
sacerdotes  etiam  vilissimis  copulat 
meretricibus  etc.”  (Hartzheim  VI. 
192.) 


EFFORTS  AT  REPRESSION. 


423 


the  central  authority  at  Rome.  Even  in  Electoral  Saxony,  though 
Duke  Frederic,  by  a  cautious  course  of  passive  resistance,  afforded 
protection  to  the  heretics,  yet  he  still  considered  himself  a  Catholic, 
and  the  ritual  of  his  chapel  was  unaltered.  Elsewhere  the  ecclesi¬ 
astical  power  was  bent  on  asserting  its  supremacy  over  the  licentious 
apostates  who  ventured  to  sully  their  vows  and  prostitute  the  sacra¬ 
ment  of  marriage  by  their  incestuous  unions.  The  old  charge  of 
promiscuous  intercourse  was  resorted  to  in  their  case,  as  it  has  been 
with  almost  every  heresy  in  every  age,  for  the  purpose  of  exciting 
popular  odium,1  and  wherever  the  discipline  of  the  church  could  be 
enforced,  it  was  done  unsparingly.  The  temper  of  these  endeavors 
to  repress  the  movement  is  well  illustrated  by  the  regulations  pro¬ 
mulgated  under  the  authority  of  the  Cardinal-legate  Campeggi, 
when,  in  1524,  he  succeeded  in  uniting  a  number  of  reactionary 
princes  at  the  Assembly  of  Ratisbon.  Deploring  the  sacrilege  com¬ 
mitted  in  the  marriages  of  priests  and  monks,  which  were  becoming 
extremely  common,  he  granted  permission  to  the  secular  powers  to 
seize  all  such  apostates  and  deliver  them  to  the  ecclesiastical  officials, 
significantly  restraining  them,  however,  from  inflicting  torture.  The 
officials  were  empowered  to  condemn  the  offenders  to  perpetual  im¬ 
prisonment,  or  to  hand  them  over  to  the  secular  arm — a  decent 
euphuism  for  a  frightful  death ;  and  any  negligence  on  the  part  of 

the  ordinaries  exposed  those  officers  to  the  pains  and  penalties  of 
2 

In  spite  of  all  this,  however,  the  votaries  of  marriage  had  the 
support  and  sympathy  of  the  great  body  of  the  people.  It  shows 
how  widely  diffused  and  strongly  implanted  was  the  conviction  of 
the  evils  of  celibacy,  when  those  who  four  centuries  earlier  had  so 
cruelly  persecuted  their  pastors  for  not  discarding  their  wives  now 
urged  them  to  marriage,  and  were  ready  to  protect  them  from  the 
consequences  of  the  act.  Thus,  during  the  summer  of  1524,  Wolf¬ 
gang  Fabricius  Capito,  provost  of  St.  Thomas  and  priest  of  the 
church  of  St.  Peter  at  Strassburg,  whom  we  have  seen  two  years 
earlier  prosecuting  a  married  priest,  took  to  himself  a  wife,  by  the 
request  of  his  parishioners,  and  when  the  chapter  of  canons  endeav¬ 
ored  to  interfere  with  him,  the  threatening  aspect  of  the  populace 


1  See  the  address  of  Frederic  Nausea, 
surnamed  Blancicampianus,  afterwards 
Bishop  of  Vienna,  at  the  Council  of 


Mainz  in  1527. — Synod.  Mogunt.  ann. 
1527  (Hartzheim  VI.  207). 

2  Reformat.  Cleri  German,  ann.  1524 
c.  26  (Goldast.  Constit.  Imp.  III.  491). 


424 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


warned  them  to  desist.  Nor  was  this  the  only  case,  for  Bishop  Wil¬ 
liam  undertook  to  excommunicate  all  the  married  priests  of  Strass- 
burg,  when  the  senate  of  the  city  resolutely  espoused  their  cause, 
and  even  the  authority  of  the  legate  Campeggi  could  not  reconcile 
the  quarrel.1 

Even  higher  protection  was  sometimes  not  wanting.  When  Adrian 
II.,  in  1522,  reproached  the  Diet  of  Niirnberg  with  the  inobservance 
of  the  decree  of  Worms  and  the  consequent  growth  of  Lutheranism, 
and  King  Ferdinand,  in  the  name  of  the  German  states,  replied  that 
a  council  for  the  reformation  of  the  church  was  the  only  remedy,  the 
question  of  married  priests  arose  for  discussion.  The  German  princes 
alleged  that  they  could  find  in  the  civil  and  municipal  laws  no  pro¬ 
visions  for  the  punishment  of  such  transgressions,  and  that  the  canons 
of  discipline  could  only  be  enforced  by  the  ecclesiastical  authorities 
themselves,  who  ought  not  to  be  interfered  with  in  the  discharge  of 
their  duty  by  the  secular  authorities.2  This  was  scant  encourage¬ 
ment,  hut  even  this  was  often  denied  in  practice.  When,  in  1523, 
Conrad  von  Tungen,  Bishop  of  Wurzburg,  threw  into  prison  two  of 
his  canons,  the  doctors  John  Apel  and  Frederic  Fischer,  for  the  crime 
of  marrying  nuns,  the  Council  of  Regency  at  Nurnberg  forced  him 
to  liberate  them  in  a  few  weeks.3  This  latter  fact  is  the  more  re¬ 
markable,  since,  but  a  short  time  previous  (March  6th,  1523),  the 
Imperial  Diet  at  Niirnberg,  under  the  auspices  of  the  same  Regency, 
had  expressed  its  desire  to  give  every  assistance  to  the  ecclesiastical 
authority  in  enforcing  the  canons.  In  a  decree  on  the  subject  of  the 
religious  disturbances,  it  adopted  the  canon  law  on  celibacy  as  part 
of  the  civil  law,  pronouncing  sentence  of  imprisonment  and  confis¬ 
cation  on  all  members  of  the  clergy  who  should  marry,  and  ordering 
the  civil  power  in  all  cases  to  assist  the  ecclesiastical  in  its  efforts  to 
punish  offenders.4 


1  Spalatin.  Annal.  ann.  1524. 

2  Respons.  S.  R.  I.  Ordinum  No- 

rim}).  cap.  18  (Goldast.  op.  cit.  I.  455). 
— With  this  the  Legate  Cheregato  pro¬ 

fessed  himself  to  he  content,  hut  he 
bitterly  complained  of  an  intimation 
that  if  these  apostate  priests  and  nuns 
transgressed  the  laws  in  any  other  way, 
the  secular  tribunals  would  punish 
them.  He  held  that,  though  apostates, 
they  were  still  ecclesiastics,  only  amen¬ 
able  to  the  courts  Christian,  and  he 


protested  against  any  violation  of  the 
privileges  and  jurisdiction  of  the  church 
such  as  would  he  committed  in  bring¬ 
ing  them  before  a  civil  magistrate. 
(Ibid.  p.  456.) 

3  Spalatin.  ann.  1523. 

4  Edict.  Norimb.  Convent,  ann.  1523 
c.  10,  18,  19  (Goldast.  II.  151). — This 
illustrates  well  the  vacillating  conduct 
of  the  Council  of  Regency  during  this 
period. 


EMANCIPATION  OF  NUNS. 


425 


The  emancipation  of  nuns  excited  considerable  public  interest,  and 
in  many  instances  was  effected  by  aid  from  without.  A  certain  Leon¬ 
hard  Kopp,  who  was  a  determined  enemy  of  monachism,  rendered 
himself  somewhat  notorious  by  exploits  of  the  kind.  One  of  the 
earliest  instances  wTas  that  by  which,  on  Easter  eve,  1523,  at  con¬ 
siderable  risk,  he  succeeded  in  carrying  off  from  the  convent  of 
Nimptschen,  in  Misnia,  eight  young  virgins  of  noble  birth,  all  of 
whom  were  subsequently  married,  and  one  of  whom  wras  Catharine 
von  Bora.1  The  example  was  contagious.  Before  the  month  was 
out  six  nuns,  all  of  noble  blood,  left  the  abbey  of  Sormitz,  and  soon 
after  eight  escaped  from  that  of  Peutwitz,  at  Weissenfels.2  Monks 
enfranchised  themselves  with  still  less  trouble.  At  Niirnberg,  in 
1524,  the  Augustinians  in  a  body  threw  off  their  cowls  and  pro¬ 
claimed  themselves  citizens.3 

Finally,  Luther  gave  the  last  and  most  unquestionable  proof  of  his 
adhesion  to  the  practice  of  sacerdotal  marriage  by  espousing  Cath¬ 
arine  von  Bora,  whom  we  have  seen  escaping,  two  years  before,  from 
the  convent  of  Nimptschen.  Scandal,  it  would  seem,  had  been  busy 
with  the  intimacy  between  the  pious  doctor  and  the  fair  renegade, 
who  had  spent  nearly  the  whole  period  of  her  liberty  at  Wittenberg, 
and  Luther,  with  the  practical  decision  of  character  which  distin¬ 
guished  him,  suddenly  resolved  to  put  the  most  effectual  stop  to 
rumors  which  his  enemies  doubtless  were  delighted  to  circulate. 
On  the  evening  of  June  13th,  1525,  without  consulting  his  friends, 
he  invited  to  supper  Pomeranius,  Lucas  Cranach,  and  Apellus,  and 
had  the  marriage  ceremony  performed.4  It  took  his  followers  com¬ 
pletely  by  surprise ;  many  of  them  disapproved  of  it,  and  Justus 
Jonas,  in  communicating  the  fact  to  Spalatin,  characterizes  it  as  a 
startling  event,  and  evidently  feels  that  his  correspondent  will  require 
the  most  incontrovertible  evidence  of  the  fact,  when  he  declares  that 
he  himself  had  been  present  and  had  seen  the  bridegroom  in  the 
marriage  bed.5  If  the  portraits  after  Lucas  Cranach  given  in  Mayer’s 


1  Chron.  Torgaviae — Spalatin.  Annal. 
ann.  1523.  He  conveyed  them  at  once 
to  Wittenberg,  and  Luther  writes  to 
Spalatin  asking  him  to  collect  funds  for 
their  support  until  they  can  be  per¬ 
manently  provided  for. 

2  Spalatin.  ubi  sup. 

3  Spalatin.  ann.  1524. 

4  Melanchthon  to  Camerarius  {ap. 

Mayeri  Dissert,  de  Cath.  Lutheri  con- 


juge.  pp.  25-6). — Melanchthon  can 
only  suggest  that  it  was  a  mysterious 
act  of  Providence. — “Isto  enim  sub 
negotio  fortassi  aliquid  occulti  et  quid- 
dam  divinius  subest,  de  quo  nos  curiose 
quaerere  non  decet.” — The  whole  letter 
is  singularly  apologetic  in  its  tone. 

5  Spalatin.  ann.  1525. 

Pomeranius,  a  priest  of  Wittenberg, 
in  writing  to  Spalatin,  gives  as  the 
reason  of  Luther’s  marriage — “  Maligna 


426 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


Dissertation  on  Catharine  be  faithful  likenesses,  it  was  scarcely  the 
beauty  of  his  bride  that  led  Luther  to  take  this  step,  for  her  features 
seem  rather  African  than  European.1 

When  Luther  had  once  decided  for  himself  on  the  propriety  of 
sacerdotal  marriage,  he  was  not  likely  to  stop  half-way.  Some  of 
the  reformers  were  disposed  to  adopt  the  principles  of  the  early 
church,  and,  while  permitting  married  priests  to  officiate,  denied  to 
them  the  right  to  marry  a  second  time  or  to  espouse  any  hut  virgins, 
declaring  all  digami  worthy  of  death  and  calling  upon  the  people  to 
drive  them  out.  Against  these  Luther,  in  1528,  took  up  the  cudgels 
vigorously,  arguing  the  question  in  all  its  bearings  and  arriving  at 
the  conclusion  that  only  bigamists  were  to  be  shunned  or  deemed 


fama  effecit  lit  Doct.  Martinus  insperato 
fieret  conjunx;  ”  and  Luther,  in  a  letter 
to  the  same,  admits  this  even  more  dis¬ 
tinctly — “Os  obstruxi  infamantibus  me 
cum  Catherina  Borana.”  That  his 
action  was  not  generally  approved  by 
his  friends  is  apparent  from  his  asking 
Michael  Stiefel  to  pray  that  his  new 
life  may  sanctify  him — “  Nam  vehe- 
menter  irritantur  sapientes,  etiam  inter 
nostros.” — Spalatin.  ubi  sup. 

That  surprise  should  have  been 
aroused  is  singular,  when  he  had  already 
proclaimed  the  most  extreme  views  in 
favor  of  matrimony.  As  early  as  1522 
he  delivered  his  famous  “Sermo  de 
Matrimonio,”  in  which  he  enjoins  it  in 
the  strictest  manner  as  a  duty  incumbent 
upon  all.  Thus,  in  considering  the  im¬ 
pediments  to  marriage,  he  treats  of 
vows,  concerning  which  he  says  :  “Sin 
votum  admissum  est,  videndum  tibi 
est,  ut  supra  memoravi,  num  tribus 
eviratorum  generibus  comprehendaris, 
quae  conjugio  ademit  Deus,  ubi  te  in 
aliquo  istorumuno  non  repereris,  votum 
rescindas,  monasticen  deseras  oportet; 
moxque  ad  naturalem  sociam  adj ungas 
te  matrimonii  lege.” — P.  i.  c.  8  (Opp. 
Ed.  Yuitemberg.  Y.  121).  To  this 
must  be  added  his  decided  opinions  on 
the  subject  of  conjugal  rights,  as  devel¬ 
oped  in  the  well-known  passage  which 
has  excited  so  much  animadversion,  and 
which,  if  we  are  to  interpret  it  literally, 
conveys  a  doctrine  which  sounds  so 
strangely  as  the  precept  of  a  teacher  of 
morality.  In  treating  of  the  causes  of 
divorce,  he  remarks:  “  Tertia  ratio  est, 
ubi  alter  alteri  sese  subduxerit,  ut  debi- 
tam  benevolentiam  persolvere  nolit,  aut 
habitare  cum  renuerit.  Reperiuntur 


enim  interdum  adeo  pertinaces  uxores, 
qui  etiam  si  decies  in  libidinem  pro- 
labentur  mariti  pro  sua  duritia  non 
curarent.  Hie  oportunum  est  ut  ma- 
ritus  dicat ‘Si  tu  nolueris,  alia  volet.’ 
Si  domina  nolit,  adveniat  ancilla,  ita 
tamen  ut  antea  iterum  et  tertio  uxorem 
admoneat  maritus,  et  coram  aliis  ejus 
etiam  pertinaciam  detegat,  ut  publice 
et  ante  conspectum  ecclesiae,  duritia 
ejus  et  agnoscatur  et  reprehendatur. 
Si  turn  renuat,  repudia  earn,  et  in  vicem 
Yasti,  Ester  surroga,  Assueri  regis  ex- 
emplo”t(Ibid.  p.  123). 

One  conclusion,  at  least,  can  safely 
be  drawn  from  this,  that  the  morality 
of  the  age  had  impressed  Luther  with 
the  belief  that  the  self-restraint  of 
chastity  was  impossible. 

That  the  Catholics  should  make  them¬ 
selves  merry  over  the  marriage  of  the 
apostate  monk  and  nun  was  to  be  ex¬ 
pected,  and  Jerome  Emser  did  not 
think  it  beneath  him  to  write  an  epi- 
thalamium  on  the  wedding  of  his 
former  friend,  of  which  the  following 
may  be  taken  as  a  specimen — 

Ad  Priapum  Lampsacenum 
Veneramur,  et  Silenum 
Bacchumque  cum  Venere 
cum  jubilo. 

Septa  claustri  dissipamus, 

Sacra  vasa  compilamus 
Sumptus  unde  suppetat 
cum  jubilo. 

Mayeri  Dissert,  p.  22,  23. 

1  Mayeri  de  Cath.  Luth.  conjug* 
Dissert.  4to.  Hamburgi,  1702.  Cranach, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  one  of  the  three 
witnesses  present  at  the  marriage. 


INFLUENCES  ADVERSE  TO  CELIBACY. 


427 


unworthy  of  holy  orders.1  Yet  at  the  same  time  his  thoroughly 
practical  mind  prevented  him  from  losing  sight  of  some  of  the  evils 
inseparable  from  the  revolution  which  he  had  wrought  in  an  institu¬ 
tion  so  deeply  affecting  daily  life  as  monasticism.  As  late  as  1543, 
in  a  letter  to  Spalatin,  while  congratulating  him  on  the  desire  ex¬ 
pressed  by  some  nuns  to  leave  their  convent,  he  cautions  them  not 
to  do  so  unless  they  have  a  certainty  or,  at  least,  a  speedy  prospect 
of  marriage.  He  complains  of  the  number  of  such  cases  in  which 
he  had  been  obliged  to  support  the  fugitives,  and  he  concludes  by 
declaring  that  old  women  who  had  no  chance  of  finding  husbands 
had  much  better  remain  in  their  cloisters.2 

It  is  not  difficult  to  explain  why  there  was  so  ready  and  general 
an  acquiescence  in  the  abrogation  of  a  rule  established  by  the  ven¬ 
eration  of  so  many  centuries.  Not  only  had  the  doctrines  of  the 
reformers  taken  a  deep  and  firm  hold  of  the  popular  heart  through¬ 
out  Germany,  destroying  the  reverence  for  tradition  and  antiquity, 
and  releasing  the  human  mind  from  the  crushing  obligation  of  blind 
obedience,  but  there  were  other  motives,  natural,  if  not  particularly 
creditable.  The  ecclesiastical  foundations  had  long  neglected  the 
duties  of  charity,  hospitality,  and  education,  on  which  were  grounded 
their  claims  to  their  broad  lands  and  rich  revenues.  While,  there¬ 
fore,  the  temporal  princes  might  be  delighted  with  the  opportunity 
of  secularizing  and  seizing  the  church  possessions,  the  people  might 
reasonably  hope  that  the  increase  of  their  rulers’  wealth  would  alle¬ 
viate  their  own  burdens,  as  well  as  release  them  from  the  direct 
oppression  which  many  of  them  suffered  from  the  religious  establish¬ 
ments.  Even  more  potential  was  the  disgust  everywhere  felt  for  the 
flagrant  immorality  of  the  priesthood.  The  dread  experienced  by 
every  husband  and  father  lest  wife  and  daughter  might  at  any  mo¬ 
ment  fall  victims  to  the  lust  of  those  who  had  every  opportunity  for 
the  gratification  of  unholy  passions,  led  them  to  welcome  the  change, 
in  the  hope  that  it  would  result  in  restoring  decency  and  virtue  to  a 
class  which  had  long  seemed  to  regard  its  sacred  character  as  the 
shield  and  instrument  of  crime. 

The  moral  character  of  the  clergy,  indeed,  had  not  improved 
during  the  busy  and  eventful  years  which  marked  the  first  quarter 
of  the  sixteenth  century.  There  is  a  curious  little  tract,  printed  in 
Cologne  in  1505,  with  the  approbation  of  the  faculty,  which  is  di- 

1  Lutheri  Opp.  (Jense,  1564,  T.  I.  fol.  496-500). 

2  Supplement  Epistt.  M.  Lutheri  No.  212  (Halae,  1703). 


428 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


rected  against  concubinage  in  general,  but  particularly  against  that 
of  the  priests.  Its  laborious  accumulation  of  authorities  to  prove 
that  licentiousness  is  a  sin  is  abundant  evidence  of  the  existing 
demoralization,  while  the  practices  which  it  combats,  of  guilty  eccle¬ 
siastics  granting  absolution  to  each  other  and  mutually  dispensing 
themselves  from  confession,  show  how  easily  the  safeguards  with 
which  the  church  had  sought  to  surround  her  ministers  were  eluded.1 
The  degradation  of  the  priesthood,  indeed,  can  readily  be  measured 
wheru,  in  the  little  town  of  Hof,  in  the  Yogtland,  three  priests  could 
be  found  defiling  the  sacredness  of  Ash-Wednesday  by  fiercely  fight¬ 
ing  over  a  courtesan  in  a  house  of  ill-fame;2  or  when  Leo  X.,  in  a 
feeble  effort  at  reform,  was  obliged  to  argue  that  systematic  licen¬ 
tiousness  was  not  rendered  excusable  because  its  prevalence  amounted 
to  a  custom,  or  because  it  was  openly  tolerated  by  those  whose  duty 
was  to  repress  it.3  In  fact,  a  clause  in  the  Concordat  with  Francis  I. 
in  1516,  renewing  and  enhancing  the  former  punishments  for  public 
concubinage,  would  almost  justify  the  presumption  that  the  principal 
result  of  the  rule  of  celibacy  was  to  afford  to  the  officials  a  regular 
revenue  derived  from  the  sale  of  licenses  to  sin4 — the  old  abuse, 
which  rises  before  us  in  every  age  from  the  time  of  Damiani  and 
Hildebrand,  and  which,  since  John  XXII.  had  framed  the  tariff  of 
absolutions  for  crime  known  as  the  “  Taxes  of  the  Penitentiary,” 
had  the  authority  of  the  papacy  itself  to  justify  it.  In  this  curious 
document  we  find  that  a  concubinary  priest  could  procure  absolution 
for  less  than  a  ducat  “  in  spite  of  all  provincial  and  synodal  consti¬ 
tutions  while  half  a  ducat  was  sufficient  to  absolve  for  incest  com¬ 
mitted  with  a  mother  or  a  sister.5 

That  no  concealment  was  thought  necessary,  and  that  sensual 
indulgence  was  not  deemed  derogatory  in  any  way  to  the  character 


1  Avisamentum  de  Concubinariis  non 
absolvendis,  4to.  1505. — The  author 
devotes  a  long  argument  to  prove  that 
incontinence  in  a  priest  is  worse  than 
homicide.  His  conclusion  is  “  Omnis 
sacerdos  fornicando  est  sacrilegus  et 
perjurus;  et  gravius  totiens  quotiens 
peccat  quam  si  hominem  occidat.” 

1  Wideman.  Chron.  Curiae  ann.  1505. 

3  Neque  superiorum  tolerantia,  seu 
prava  consuetudo,  quae  potius  cor- 
ruptela  dicenda  est,  a  inultitudine 
peccantium,  aliave  quaelibet  excusatio 

eis  aliquo  modo  sutfragetur. — Concil. 

Lateran.  Y.  ann.  1514  Sess.  IX. 


4  Quia  vero  in  quibusdam  regioni- 
bus  nonnulli  jurisdictionem  ecclesias- 
ticam  habentes,  pecuniarios  quaestus 
a  concubinariis  percipere  non  erubes- 
cunt,  patientes  eos  in  tali  fceditate  sor- 
descere. — Concil.  Lateran.  Y.  ann. 
1516  Sess.  xi. — Cf.  Cornel.  Agripp. 
De  Yanitate  Scient.  c.  lxiv. — Agrippa 
even  states  that  it  was  a  common  thing 
for  bishops  to  sell  to  women  whose  hus¬ 
bands  were  absent  the  right  to  commit 
adultery  without  sin. 

5  Taxae  Sacrae  Poenitentiariae,  Fried¬ 
rich’s  Ed.  p.  38;  Gibbings’s,  p.  3; 
Saint-Andre’s,  p.  8. 


DEMORALIZATION  OF  THE  PRIESTHOOD. 


429 


of  a  Christian  prelate,  may  be  reasonably  deduced  from  the  pane¬ 
gyric  of  Gerard  of  Nimeguen  on  Philip  of  Burgundy,  granduncle 
of  Charles  V.,  a  learned  and  accomplished  man,  who  filled  the  im¬ 
portant  see  of  Utrecht  from  1517  to  1524.  Gerard  alludes  to  the 
amorous  propensities  and  promiscuous  intrigues  of  his  patron  with¬ 
out  reserve,  and  as  his  book  was  dedicated  to  the  Archduchess  Mar¬ 
garet,  sister  of  Charles  V.,  it  is  evident  that  he  did  not  feel  his 
remarks  to  be  defamatory.  The  good  prelate,  too,  no  doubt  repre¬ 
sented  the  convictions  of  a  large  portion  of  his  class,  when  he  was 
wont  to  smile  at  those  who  urged  the  propriety  of  celibacy,  and  to 
declare  his  belief  in  the  impossibility  of  chastity  among  men  who, 
like  the  clergy,  were  pampered  with  high  living  and  tempted  by 
indolence.  Those  who  professed  to  keep  their  vows  inviolate  he 
denounced  as  hypocrites  of  the  worst  description,  and  he  deemed 
them  far  worse  than  their  brethren  who  sought  to  avoid  unnecessary 
scandal  by  decently  keeping  their  concubines  at  home.1 

Even  this  reticence,  however,  was  considered  unnecessary  by  a 
large  portion  of  the  clergy.  In  1512,  the  Bishop  of  Ratisbon  issued 
a  series  of  canons  in  which,  after  quoting  the  Basilian  regulations, 
he  adds  that  many  of  his  ecclesiastics  maintain  their  concubines  so 
openly  that  it  would  appear  as  though  they  saw  neither  sin  nor 
scandal  in  such  conduct,  and  that  their  evil  example  was  the  efficient 
cause  of  corrupting  the  faithful.2  In  Switzerland  the  same  abuses 
were  quite  as  prevalent,  if  we  may  believe  a  memorial  presented,  in 
1533,  by  the  citizens  of  Lausanne,  complaining  of  the  conduct  of 
their  clergy.  They  rebuked  the  incontinence  of  the  priests,  whose 
numerous  children  were  accustomed  to  earn  a  living  by  beggary  in 
the  streets,  but  the  canons  were  the  subjects  of  their  especial  objur¬ 
gation.  The  dean  of  the  chapter  had  defied  an  excommunication 
launched  at  him  for  buying  a  house  near  the  church  in  which  to 
keep  his  mistress ;  others  of  the  canons  had  taken  to  themselves  the 
wives  of  citizens  and  refused  to  give  them  up ;  but  the  quaintest 
grievance  of  which  they  had  been  guilty  was  the  injury  which  their 
competition  inflicted  on  the  public  brothel  of  the  town.3  What  was 


1  Gerardi  Noviomagi  Philippus  Bur- 
gundus  (Mathaei  Analect.  I.  230). 

2  Statut.  Synod.  Joan.  Episc.  Ratis- 
pon.  ann.  15l2  (Hartzheim  VI.  86). 

**  3  Art.  18e  “  Item.  Mais,  Nous  nous 
plaignions  d’aucuns  chanoines  qui  nous 
gatent  notre  bordeau  de  la  ville,  car  il 
y  en  a  qui  le  tiennent  en  leurs  maisons, 
privement,  pour  tous  venans.” — Quoted 


from  a  contemporary  MS.  by  Abraham 
Ruchat  in  his  “  Histoire  de  la  Reforma¬ 
tion  de  la  Suisse,”  T.  I.  p.  xxxiii.-v. 
(Geneve,  1727).  According  to  Corne¬ 
lius  Agrippa,  the  Roman  prelates  de¬ 
rived  a  regular  revenue  from  this 
source,  the  right  to  keep  definite  num¬ 
bers  of  strumpets  in  the  public  brothels 
being  partitioned  out  between  them. — 
De  Yanitate  Scient.  c.  lxiv. 


430 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


the  condition  of  clerical  morality  in  Italy  may  be  gathered  from  the 
stories  of  Bishop  Bandello,  who,  as  a  Dominican  and  a  prelate,  may 
fairly  be  deemed  to  represent  the  tone  of  the  thinking  and  edu¬ 
cated  classes  of  society.  The  cynical  levity  with  which  he  narrates 
scandalous  tales  about  monks  and  priests  shows  that  in  the  public 
mind  sacerdotal  immorality  was  regarded  almost  as  a  matter  of 
course.1 

The  powerful  influence  of  all  this  on  the  progress  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  was  freely  admitted  by  the  authorities  of  the  church.  When 
the  legate  Campeggi  was  sent  to  Germany  to  check  the  spread  of 
heresy,  in  his  reformatory  edict  issued  at  Ratisbon  in  1524,  he  de¬ 
clared  that  the  efforts  of  the  Lutherans  had  no  little  justification  in 
the  detestable  morals  and  lives  of  the  clergy,  and  this  is  confirmed 
by  his  unsparing  denunciation  of  their  licentiousness,  drunkenness, 
quarrels,  and  tavern-haunting ;  their  traffic  in  absolution  for  enor¬ 
mous  offences ;  their  unclerical  habits  and  hideous  blasphemy  ;  their 
indulgence  in  incantations  and  dabbling  in  witchcraft.2  Very  sig¬ 
nificant  is  his  declaration  that  the  canonical  punishments  shall  be 


1  See,  for  instance,  Novelle,  P.  iii. 
Nov.  lvi. 

2  Reformat.  Cleri  German.  (Hartz¬ 
heim  YI.  198). — “Hanc  perditissimam 
haeresin  .  .  .  non  parvam  habuisse  oc- 
casionem,  partim  a  perditis  moribus  et 
vita  clericorum  etc.” 

There  was  no  scruple  in  confessing 
tbis  fact  by  those  who  spoke  authorita¬ 
tively  for  the  Catholic  church,  and  it 
long  continued  to  be  alleged  as  the 
cause  of  the  stubbornness  of  the  here¬ 
tics.  Thus  the  Bishop  of  Constance, 
in  the  canons  of  his  Synod  of  1567 — 
“  Estote  etiam  memores,  damnatam  et 
detestandam  cleri  vitam  huic  malo  in 
quo,  proh  dolor!  versamur,  majori  ex 
parte  ansam  prsebuisse.  .  .  .  Omnes 
sapientes  peritique  viri  unanimi  sen- 
tentia  hoc  asserunt,  hocque  efflagitant 
penitus,  ut  prius  clerus  ecclesiarumque 
ministri  ac  doctores  a  vitae  sordibus 
repurgentur,  quam  ulla  cum  adversariis 
nostris  de  doctrina  concordia  expectari 
queat.”  And  then,  after  describing  in 
the  strongest  terms  the  vices  of  the 
clergy  and  their  unwillingness  to  reform, 
he  adds  “  Quae  sane  morum  turpitudo, 
vehementer  et  tantopere  imperiti  populi 
animos  offendit  ut  subinde  magis 
magisque  a  catholica  nostra  religione 
alienior  efficiatur,  atque  sacerdotium 
una  cum  sacerdotibus  doctrinam  juxta 


atque  doctores,  execretur,  dirisque 
devoveat:  ita  ut  protinus  ad  quamvis 
sectam  deficere  potius  paratus  sit  quam 
quod  ad  ecclesiam  redire  velit.  ” — Synod. 
Constant,  ann.  1567  (Hartzheim  VII. 
455). 

Pius  Y.  himself  did  not  hesitate  to 
adopt  the  same  view.  In  an  epistle 
addressed  to  the  abbots  and  priors  of 
the  diocese  of  Freysingen,  in  1567,  he 
says — “Cum  nobiscum  ipsi  cogitamus 
quae  res  materiam  praebuerit  tot  tan- 
tisque  pestiferis  haeresibus  .  .  .  tanti 
mali  causam  praecipue  fuisse  judicamus 
corruptos  praelatorum  mores,  qui  .  .  . 
eandemque  vivendi  licentiam  iis,  quibus 
praeerant  permittentes  et  exemplo  eos 
suo  corrumpentes,  maximum  apud  laicos 
odium  contemptionem  et  invidiam  non 
immerito  contraxerunt”  (Hartzheim 
VII.  586). 

Alfonso  de  Castro  in  1556  declares 
that  the  priesthood  was  one  of  the  effi¬ 
cient  causes  of  the  spread  of  heresy. 
It  would  be  difficult  for  orthodoxy  to 
maintain  itself  without  the  direct  in¬ 
terposition  of  God,  in  view  of  the  scan¬ 
dalous  lives,  and  general  worthlessness 
of  all  orders  of  ecclesiastics,  whose  exces¬ 
sive  numbers,  ignorance,  and  turpitude 
exposed  them  to  contempt. — Alph.  de 
Castro  de  Just.  Punit.  Haeres.  Lib. 
hi.  c.  5. 


DEMORALIZATION  OF  THE  PRIESTHOOD. 


431 


inflicted  on  concubinary  priests,  in  spite  of  all  custom  to  the  contrary 
or  all  connivance  with  the  prelates.1 

How  little,  indeed,  licentious  ecclesiastics  might  reasonably  dread 
the  canonical  punishments  is  illustrated  in  the  report,  by  the  cele¬ 
brated  jurisconsult  Grillandus,  of  a  case  which  came  before  him  while 
he  was  auditor  of  the  Papal  Yicar  in  Rome.  A  Spanish  priest  and 
Doctor  of  Canon  Law,  residing  in  the  Christian  capital,  became 
enamoured  of  several  young  nuns  at  once,  and  endeavored  to  seduce 
them  by  teaching  them  that,  as  they  and  he  were  alike  spouses  of 
Christ,  carnal  affection  between  them  was  their  duty.  Failing  in 
this,  he  sought  to  compel  the  assistance  of  God  in  his  designs,  and, 
being  a  man  of  literary  culture,  he  composed  a  number  of  prayers 
of  singular  obscenity,  and  bribed  various  ignorant  priests  to  recite 
them  amid  the  ineffable  mysteries  of  the  Mass,  hoping  thus  to  obtain 
the  aid  of  heaven  in  overcoming  the  chastity  of  his  intended  victims. 
At  length  he  chanced  to  offer  one  of  these  prayers  to  a  priest  of 
somewhat  better  character,  who  was  sufficiently  shocked  by  it  to 
communicate  with  the  authorities.  Brought  before  Grillandus,  the 
guilty  Spaniard  sought  to  justify  himself  by  alleging  various  Scrip¬ 
tural  texts,  but,  upon  being  warned  that  such  a  defence  would  subject 
him  to  a  prosecution  for  heresy,  he  recanted  and  acknowledged  his 
errors.  For  this  complicated  mingling  of  lust  ,  and  sacrilege,  his 
only  punishment  was  a  short  banishment  from  Rome.2  When  the 
papal  court  set  such  an  example,  what  was  to  be  expected  of  less 
enlightened  regions  ? 

How  keenly  these  evils  were  felt  by  the  people,  and  how  instinct¬ 
ively  they  were  referred  to  the  rule  of  celibacy  as  to  their  proper 
origin,  is  shown  by  an  incidental  allusion  in  the  formula  of  complaint 
laid  before  the  pope  by  the  imperial  Diet  held  at  Niirnberg  early  in 
1522,  before  the  heresy  of  priestly  marriage  had  spread  beyond  the 


1  Reformat.  Cleri  German,  cap.  xv. 
— So  when,  in  1521,  Conrad,  Bishop  of 
Wurzburg,  issued  a  mandate  for  the 
reformation  of  his  clergy,  he  described 
them  as  for  the  most  part  abandoned  to 
gluttony,  drunkenness,  gambling,  quar¬ 
relling,  and  lust.— Mandat,  pro.  Re¬ 
format.  Cleri.  (Gropp,  Script.  Rer. 
Wirceburg.  I.  269).  —  In  1505  the 
Bishop  of  Bamberg,  in  complaining  of 
his  clergy,  shows  us  how  little  respect 
was  habitually  paid  to  the  incessant 
repetition  of  the  canons. — “Condo- 
lenter  referimus  vitam  et  honestatem 


clericalem  adeo  apud  quamplures  nos- 
trarum  civitatis  et  dioceseos  clericos 
esse  obumbratam  ut  vix  inter  clericos 
et  laycos  discrimen  habeatur:  et  ipsa 
statuta  nostra  synodalia  in  ipsorum 
clericorum  cordibus  obliterata  et  a  plur- 
ibus  non  visa  aut  perlecta  vilipendantur : 
nullam  propter  nostram,  quam  hactenus 
pii  pastoris  more  tolleravimus  patien- 
tiam,  capientes  emendationem.” — 
(Hartzheim  VI.  66.) 

2  Grillandi  Tract,  de  Sortilegiis 
Qusest.  xvii.  No.  1. 


432 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


vicinity  of  Wittenberg.  The  Diet,  in  recounting  the  evils  arising 
from  the  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  which  allowed  clerical  offenders  to 
enjoy  virtual  immunity,  adduced,  among  other  grievances,  the  license 
afforded  to  those  who,  debarred  by  the  canons  from  marriage,  aban¬ 
doned  themselves  night  and  day  to  attempts  upon  the  virtue  of  the 
wives  and  daughters  of  the  laity,  sometimes  gaining  their  ends  by 
flattery  and  presents,  and  sometimes  taking  advantage  of  the  oppor¬ 
tunities  offered  by  the  confessional.  It  was  not  uncommon,  indeed, 
for  women  to  be  openly  carried  off  by  their  priests,  while  their  hus¬ 
bands  and  fathers  were  threatened  with  vengeance  if  they  should 
attempt  to  recover  them.  As  regards  the  sale  to  ecclesiastics  of 
licenses  to  indulge  in  habitual  lust,  the  Diet  declared  it  to  be  a  reg¬ 
ular  and  settled  matter,  reduced  to  the  form  of  an  annual  tax,  which 
in  most  dioceses  was  exacted  of  all  the  clergy  without  exception,  so 
that  when  those  who  perchance  lived  chastely  demurred  at  the  pay¬ 
ment,  they  were  told  that  the  bishop  must  have  the  money,  and  that 
after  it  was  handed  over  they  might  take  their  choice  whether  to 
keep  concubines  or  not.1  In  the  face  of  this  condition  of  ecclesi¬ 
astical  morality,  it  required  some  obtuseness  for  Adrian  VI.  to  com¬ 
pare  Luther  to  Mahomet,  the  one  seeking  to  attract  to  his  party  the 
carnal-minded  by  permitting  marriage,  even  as  the  other  had  estab¬ 
lished  polygamy,2  and,  further,  to  abuse  him  for  uniting  the  ministers 
of  Christ  with  the  vilest  harlots.3 


Among  the  diverse  opinions  of  existing  evils  and  their  remedy,  it 
is  interesting  to  see  what  was  the  view  of  the  subject  taken  by  those 
ecclesiastics  whose  purity  of  life  removed  them  from  all  temptation 
to  indulgence,  and  who  yet  were  not  personally  interested  in  uphold¬ 
ing  the  gigantic  but  decaying  structure  of  sacerdotalism.  Of  these 
men  Erasmus  may  be  taken  as  the  representative.  His  opinion  on 
all  the  questions  of  the  day  was  too  eagerly  desired  for  him  to  escape 
the  necessity  of  pronouncing  his  verdict  on  the  innovation  portended 


1  Gravamin.  Ordin.  Imperii  cap.  xxi., 
lvii.,  lxx.  (Goldast.  I.  4G4). 

When  such  complaints  were  made  by 
the  highest  authority  in  the  empire,  it 
is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  reasons 
which  led  the  senate  of  Niirnberg — 
which  city  had  not  yet  embraced  the 
Reformation — to  deprive,  in  1524,  the 
Dominicans  and  Franciscans  of  the 
superintendence  and  visitation  of  the 
nuns  of  St.  Catharine  and  St.  Clare ; 


nor  do  we  need  Spalatin’s  malicious 
suggestion — “cura  et  visitatione,  pene 
dixeram  corruptione.” — Spalatin.  An¬ 
na!  ann.  1524. 

2  Adriani  PP.  YI.  Instructio  data 
Fr.  Cheregato,  Nov.  25,  1522  (Le  Plat, 
Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  II.  146). 

3  Adriani  PP.  YI.  Breve  ad  Frid. 
Saxon.  (Lutheri  Opp.  T.  II.  fol.  542 b. 

,  — Le  Plat,  II.  134). 


OPINIONS  OF  ERASMUS. 


483 


by  the  one  or  two  marriages  which  took  place  near  Wittenberg  in 
1521,  and  accordingly,  in  1522,  from  his  retreat  at  Bale  he  issued  a 
short  dissertation  on  the  subject,  which,  although  addressed  merely 
to  Bishop  Christopher  of  that  city,  was  evidently  intended  for  a 
European  audience.  In  this  essay,  after  sketching  the  rise  of  celi¬ 
bacy  and  attributing  it  to  the  purity  and  fervor  of  the  early  Chris¬ 
tians,  he  proceeds  to  depict  the  altered  condition  of  the  church. 
Among  the  innumerable  multitude  of  priests  who  crowd  the  monas¬ 
teries,  the  chapters,  and  the  parishes,  he  declares  that  there  are  few 
indeed  whose  lives  are  pure,  even  as  respects  open  and  avowed  con¬ 
cubinage,  without  penetrating  into  the  mysteries  of  secret  intrigue. 
As,  therefore,  there  is  no  Scriptural  injunction  of  celibacy,  he  con¬ 
cludes  that,  however  desirable  it  might  be  to  have  ministers  free 
from  the  cares  of  marriage  and  devoting  themselves  solely  to  the 
service  of  God,  yet,  since  it  seems  impossible  to  conquer  the  rebel¬ 
lious  flesh,  it  would  be  better  to  allow  those  who  cannot  control 
themselves  to  have  wives  with  whom  they  could  live  in  virtuous 
peace,  bringing  up  their  children  in  the  fear  of  God,  and  earning 
the  respect  of  their  flocks.  No  more  startling  evidence,  indeed,  of 
the  demoralization  of  the  period  could  be  given  than  the  cautious 
fear  which  Erasmus  expresses  lest  such  a  change  should  be  opposed 
by  the  episcopal  officials,  who  would  object  to  the  diminution  of  their 
unhallowed  gains  levied  on  the  concubines  of  the  clergy.1 

When  such  was  the  condition  of  ecclesiastical  morality,  and  such 
were  the  opinions  of  all  except  those  directly  interested  in  upholding 
the  old  order  of  things,  it  is  no  wonder  if  the  people  were  disposed 
to  look  with  favor  on  the  marriage  of  their  pastors,  and  if  the  rejec- 


1  Erasmi  Lib.  xxxi.  Epist.  43. 

Notwithstanding  the  sarcasm,  popu¬ 
larly  attributed  to  Erasmus,  on  the  oc¬ 
casion  of  Luther’s  union  with  Catharine 
von  Bora — that  the  Reformation  had 
turned  out  to  be  a  comedy,  seeing  that 
it  resulted  in  a  marriage — he  continued 
to  raise  his  voice  in  favor  of  abolishing 
the  rule  of  celibacy.  Thus  he  writes, 
in  October,  1525,  ‘‘Vehementer  laudo 
ccelibatum,  sed  ut  nunc  habet  sacerdo- 
tum  ac  monachorum  vita,  praesertim 
apud  Germanos,  praestaret  indulgeri 
remedium  matrimonii  ”  (Lib.  xvm. 
Epist.  9).  And  again,  in  1526,  “  Ego 
nec  sacerdotibus  permitto  conjugium, 
nec  monachis  relaxo  vota,  ni  id  fiat  ex 


auctoritate  Pontificum,  ad  sedificationem 
ecclesise  non  ad  destructionem  ...  In 
primis  optandum  esset  sacerdotes  et 
monachos  castitatem  ac  ccelestem  vitam 
amplecti.  Nunc  rebus  adeo  contamin- 
atis,  fortasse  levius  malum  erat  eligen- 
dum  ”  (Lib.  xvm.  Epist.  4). 

Yet,  in  his  ‘‘Liber  de  Amabili 
Ecclesiae  Concordia,”  written  in  1533 
in  the  hope  of  reuniting  the  severed 
church,  while  awaiting  the  promised 
general  council  which  was  to  reconcile 
all  things,  Erasmus  did  not  hesitate  to 
give  utterance  to  the  opinion  that  those 
who  fell  away  in  heresy  or  even  schism 
were  worse  than  those  who  lived  im¬ 
purely  in  the  true  faith. 

28 


434 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


tion  of  celibacy  gave  a  fresh  impetus  to  the  cause  of  Lutheranism. 
In  the  early  days  of  all  sects,  it  is  only  those  of  ardent  faith  and 
pure  zeal  who  are  likely  to  embrace  a  new  belief,  with  all  the 
attendant  risks  of  persecution  and  contumely.  The  laxity  of  life 
allowed  to  the  Catholic  clergy  w'ould  attract  to  its  ranks  and  retain 
those  whose  aim  was  sensual  indulgence.  Thus,  necessarily,  the 
reformers  who  married  would  present  for  contrast  regular  and  chaste 
lives  and  well-ordered  households,  purified  by  the  dread  of  the  ever- 
impending  troubles  to  which  the  accident  of  a  day  might  at  any  time 
expose  them.  The  comparison  thus  was  in  every  way  favorable  to 
the  new  ideas,  and  they  flourished  accordingly. 

Nor,  perhaps,  were  the  worldly  inducements  to  which  I  have  be¬ 
fore  alluded  less  powerful  in  their  own  way  in  advancing  the  cause. 
Shortly  before  Luther’s  marriage,  whatever  influence  wTas  derivable 
from  an  aristocratic  example  was  obtained  when  the  Baron  of  Hey- 
deck,  a  knight  of  the  Teutonic  order,  renounced  his  vows  and  pub¬ 
licly  espoused  a  nun  of  Ligny.1  This  may  possibly  have  encouraged 
his  superior,  Albert  of  Brandenburg,  grand-master  of  the  order,  to 
execute  his  remarkably  successful  coup  d’etat  in  changing  his  religion 
and  seizing  the  estates  of  the  order,  thus  practically  founding  the 
state  which  chance  and  talent  have  exalted  until  it  has  been  able  to 
realize,  at  least  for  a  time,  the  day-dream  of  a  united  Germany. 
The  liberty  of  marriage  wdiich  he  thus  assumed  was  soon  turned  to 
account  in  his  advantageous  alliance  with  Frederic,  King  of  Den¬ 
mark,  whose  daughter  Dorothea  he  espoused,  the  Bishop  of  Szamland 
officiating  as  his  proxy,  and  the  actual  marriage  being  celebrated 
June  14,  1526. 2 

Luther  may  resonably  be  held  excusable  for  counselling  and  aiding 
a  transaction  which  lent  such  incalculable  strength  to  the  struggling 
cause  of  the  Reformation,  and  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  he  en¬ 
deavored  to  follow  it  up  with  another  of  a  similar  character.  The 
nephew  of  the  Duke  of  Prussia,  also  named  Albert  of  Brandenburg, 
occupied  the  highest  place  in  the  Teutonic  hierarchy,  as  Archbishop 
both  of  Mainz  and  Magdeburg,  in  the  latter  of  which  powerful  sees 
the  Lutheran  heresies  had  taken  deep  root.  Luther  sought  to  induce 
the  archbishop  to  follow  his  uncle’s  example ;  to  take  possession  in 
his  own  right  of  the  Magdeburg  territories,  and  to  transmit  them  to 
the  posterity  with  which  heaven  could  not  fail  to  bless  his  prospective 


1  Spalatin.  Annal.  arm.  1525. 


2  Ibid.  ann.  1526. 


EFFORTS  AT  ACCOMMODATION. 


435 


marriage — a  scheme  which  met  the  warm  approbation  of  the  leading 
nobles  of  the  diocese.  Albert  thought  seriously  of  the  project,  es¬ 
pecially  as  the  Peasants’  War  then  raging  was  directed  particularly 
against  the  lands  of  the  church,  but  he  finally  abandoned  it,  and  his 
flock  had  to  work  out  their  reformation  without  his  assistance.1 

Perhaps  some  plans  of  territorial  aggrandizement  may  have  stimu¬ 
lated  the  zeal  of  the  Count  of  Embden,  who  boasted  that  he  had 
assisted  and  encouraged  the  marriage  of  no  less  than  five  hundred 
monks  and  nuns;2  yet  the  process  of  secularizing  the  monastic  foun¬ 
dations  wTas  in  many  places  by  no  means  sudden  or  violent.  Thus, 
when  the  Abbot  of  Ilgenthal  in  SaXony  died,  in  1526,  the  Elector 
John  simply  forbade  the  election  of  a  successor,  and  placed  the 
abbey  in  charge  of  a  prefect,  while  the  remaining  monks  w^ere  lib¬ 
erally  supplied  until  they  one  after  another  died  out,3  and  in  1529, 
when  Philip,  Count  of  Waldeck,  took  possession  of  the  ancient 
monastery  of  Hainscheidt,  he  caused  all  the  monks  to  be  supported 
during  life.4 

Through  all  this  period  the  hope  had  never  been  abandoned  of 
such  an  arrangement  as  would  prevent  an  irrevocable  separation  in 
the  church.  Moderate  and  temperate  men  on  both  sides  were  ready 
to  make  such  concessions  of  form  as  wTould  enable  Christendom  to 
remain  united,  as  the  great  vital  truths  on  which  all  were  agreed  so 
far  outweighed  the  points  of  divergence.  Whether  these  hopes  were 
well  or  ill-founded  was  to  be  determined  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg, 
to  which,  in  June,  1530,  both  parties  were  summoned  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  submitting  their  differences  to  the  emperor.  Charles  came 
to  Germany  in  the  full  flush  of  his  recent  extraordinary  triumphs, 
the  most  powerful  prince  since  the  days  of  Charlemagne.  Europe 
was  at  length  at  peace,  even  the  Turk  only  looming  in  the  East  as  a 
probable,  not  as  an  existing,  enemy.  But  Charles,  newly  crowned 
at  Bologna,  came  ostensibly  as  the  steadfast  ally  of  the  pope,  and 
Clement  VII.  had  not  the  slightest  intention  of  renouncing  the  tra¬ 
ditional  and  imprescriptible  rights  of  the  Holy  See.  The  Catholic 
princes  of  Germany,  too,  had  their  grounds  of  private  quarrel  with 


1  Henke  Append,  ad  Calixt.  p.  595. 
— Serrarii  Rerum  Mogunt.  Lib.  v. 
(Script.  Rer.  Mogunt.  I.  831,  839).  As 
Albert,  though  Primate  of  Germany,  was 
only  thirty-five  or  six  years  of  age,  the 
proposition  was  not  an  unreasonable  one. 


2  Spalatin.  Annal.  ann.  1526. 

3  Thammii  Chron.  Coldicens. 

4  Chron.  "Waldeccense  (Hahnii  Col¬ 
lect.  Monument.  X.  851). 


436 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


their  Protestant  peers,  and,  holding  an  unquestioned  majority,  were 
not  disposed  to  abandon  their  position.  The  Protestant  princes,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  firm  in  their  new-found  faith,  and,  however 
disposed  to  avert  the  threatened  storm  by  the  sacrifice  of  non-essen¬ 
tials,  their  convictions  were  too  strong  for  them  to  retrace  the  steps 
wdiich  they  had  taken  during  so  many  long  and  weary  years.  It  is 
evident  that,  with  such  materials  on  either  side,  no  reunion  was  prob¬ 
able  ;  and,  even  had  an  accommodation  on  points  of  doctrine  been 
possible,  there  was  one  subject  which  scarcely  seemed  to  admit  of 
satisfactory  compromise.  In  the  states  of  the  reform,  the  downfall  of 
monachism  had  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  temporal  powers  large 
bodies  of  sequestrated  abbey  lands.  To  the  Catholic  it  was  sacri¬ 
lege  to  leave  these  in  the  hands  of  the  spoiler;  the  Protestant  would 
not  willingly  give  up  the  spoil. 

The  contest  was  opened  by  the  Protestants  submitting  a  statement 
of  their  belief,  divided  into  two  parts,  the  one  devoted  to  points  of 
faith,  the  other  to  matters  of  practice.  Prepared  principally  by 
Melanchthon,  it  presents  their  tenets  in  the  mildest  and  least  objec¬ 
tionable  form,  and  becoming  the  recognized  standard  of  their  creed, 
it  has  attained  a  world-wide  renown  under  the  name  of  the  Confes¬ 
sion  of  Augsburg.  The  questions  of  celibacy  and  monastic  vows 
were  ably  and  temperately  argued ;  their  post-scriptural  origin  was 
shown,  and  the  reasons  which  induced  the  reformers  to  reject  them 
were  placed  in  a  light  as  little  offensive  as  possible.1  At  first,  a 
counter-statement  was  anticipated  from  the  Catholics,  and  negotia¬ 
tions  were  expected  to  be  carried  on  by  a  comparison  of  the  two,  but 
they  took  higher  ground,  and  contented  themselves  with  drawing  up 
a  refutation  of  the  Confession.  The  emperor  was  firm.  His  aspi¬ 
rations  for  the  universal  monarchy,  which  ever  eluded  his  grasp,  did 
not  comport  with  encouraging  independence  of  thought  and  freedom 
of  religious  belief.  In  his  theory,  uniform  subordination  of  religion 
was  a  necessary  element  of  the  political  system  which  was  to  make 
him  sovereign  of  Europe,  and  he  wTould  listen  to  no  compromise. 
ITe  was  inclined  to  summary  measures,  but  the  Catholic  princes  were 
hardly  prepared  for  the  consequences  of  an  immediate  rupture,  and, 
after  a  threatening  interval,  another  effort  was  made  to  effect  a 
reconciliation.  Conferences  between  the  leading  theologians  on 


1  Confess.  Augustana?  P.  n.  Art.  ii., 
vi. 

In  his  Apology  for  the  Augsburg 
Confession,  however,  even  the  coldness 


of  Melanchthon  is  warmed  in  describ¬ 
ing  the  hideous  licentiousness  caused 
by  the  law  of  celibacy  (Lutheri  Opp. 
Jena?,  T.  IV.  p.  252-3). 


EFFORTS  AT  ACCOMMODATION. 


437 


both  sides  took  place,  and  the  Lutherans,  warned  of  their  danger, 
were  more  disposed  than  ever  to  make  concessions  and  to  accept 
such  terms  as  the  stronger  party  were  willing  to  offer  them.  At 
length,  on  the  8th  of  September,  the  draft  of  a  proposed  plan  of 
accord  was  laid  before  the  Diet.  In  this  the  points  in  dispute  were 
referred  to  that  future  oecumenic  council  which  had  so  long  been 
demanded  as  the  panacea  for  all  ecclesiastical  ills,  and  which,  after 
more  than  thirty  years  of  continued  expectation,  was  destined  to  fail 
so  miserably  in  reconciling  difficulties.  Such  monasteries  as  had 
not  been  destroyed  were  to  be  maintained  in  the  exercise  of  the  cus¬ 
tomary  rites  and  observances  of  religion.  Abbots  and  communities 
who  had  been  ejected  were  to  be  allowed  to  return;  and  all  religious 
houses  which  had  been  emptied  of  their  occupants  were  to  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  officers  appointed  by  the  emperor,  who  were  to  ad¬ 
minister  to  their  possessions  until  the  future  council  should  decide 
upon  all  the  points  relating  to  monachism;  the  Protestants  thus 
relieving  themselves  of  the  accusation  that  they  were  actuated  by 
motives  of  worldly  gain.  Similar  proposals  were  made  with  regard 
to  communion  in  the  two  elements  and  clerical  marriage.  These 
were  left  as  open  questions  for  the  council  to  settle,  wdiile  a  phrase 
of  doubtful  import  subjected  them  in  the  mean  time  to  the  govern¬ 
ments  of  the  several  states.1  The  concessions  in  this  project,  how¬ 
ever,  though  they  might  suit  the  views  of  temperate  doctors  and 
princes  in  Germany,  and  though  even  the  Roman  curia  might  be 
willing  to  grant  them  in  order  to  save  its  threatened  temporal  power 
over  the  Teutonic  states,  did  not  suit  the  policy  of  Charles,  who 
regarded  the  church  as  simply  one  of  the  instruments  with  which  he 
was  to  build  up  his  universal  empire.2  It  was  not  difficult  for  him, 
therefore,  to  bring  to  naught  all  such  schemes  of  conciliation.  The 
restoration  of  all  abbots  and  monks  was  ordered;  restitution  of 
church  lands  was  commanded,  or  their  delivery  to  the  emperor  to 
be  held  until  the  assembling  of  the  future  council ;  and  when  the 
Diet  adjourned,  Charles  issued  a  decree  enjoining  on  all  married 
priests  to  abstain  from  their  wives,  to  eject  them,  and  to  seek  abso¬ 
lution  from  their  ordinaries.3 


1  Deliberat.  de  Concordia  etc.  c.  iii., 
v.  (Goldast.  I.  509). 

2  See  Letter  of  Bergenroth  to  Romilly , 

from  Simancas,  June  14th,  1863 


(Cartwright’s  Memoir  of  Bergenroth, 
London,  1870,  p.  124). 

3  Sentent.  Caroli  V.  $  5  (Ibid.  I. 
510). — Rescript.  Caroli  V.  $  5  (Ibid. 
III.  512).  Henke,  Append,  ad  Calixt. 
pp.  595-6. 


438 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


The  threatening  aspect  of  affairs  warned  the  Protestant  princes 
that  no  time  was  to  be  lost  in  making  provision  for  mutual  defence, 
and  ere  the  year  was  out  the  famous  League  of  Schmalkalden  enabled 
them  to  present  a  united  front  to  the  powers  which  they  had  virtually 
defied.  Into  the  political  history  of  that  eventful  time  it  is  not  my 
province  to  enter.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  they  were  able  to  maintain 
their  position,  and  in  their  own  states  to  oppose  the  reactionary 
movement  which  at  times  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of  destroying 
all  that  had  been  accomplished. 

In  this  their  task  was  complicated  by  the  extravagances  of  those 
whose  enthusiasm,  unbalanced  by  reason,  carried  them  beyond 
restraint.  If  Luther  had  found  it  no  easy  task  to  break  the  chains 
which  for  so  many  ages  had  kept  in  check  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry, 
he  discovered  that  it  wras  impossible  to  control  that  spirit  once  let 
loose ;  and  the  wild  excesses  of  Anabaptism  were  at  once  the  exag¬ 
geration  and  the  opprobrium  of  Lutheranism.  Originally  earnest 
and  self-denying,  the  primitive  Anabaptists  had  captivated  the  fiery 
soul  of  Carlostadt,  while  Luther  was  in  his  Patmos  of  Wartburg, 
but  the  pure  asceticism  of  Storck  and  Muncer  gradually  grew  irk¬ 
some  to  the  followers  who  flocked  to  their  standard,  and,  if  w^e  may 
believe  contemporary  writers,  the  unchaining  of  human  passions  in 
that  lawless  horde  resulted  in  the  igneum  baptisma ,  or  fiery  baptism, 
by  which  at  Munster  John  Matliison  encouraged  the  most  hideous 
licentiousness  in  the  elect,  to  be  followed  up  by  his  successor,  John 
of  Leyden,  who,  in  imitation  of  the  patriarchs,  promulgated  the  law 
of  polygamy.1 

Luther,  however,  was  quite  as  resolute  in  setting  limits  to  his 
movement  as  Rome  had  been  in  forbidding  all  progress,  and  the 
Anabaptists  were  to  him  enemies  as  detestable  as  Catholics.  The 
Protestant  princes,  moreover,  had  too  much  worldly  wisdom  to  im¬ 
peril  their  dangerous  career  by  any  alliance  with  fanatics  whose 
extravagances  provoked  abhorrence  so  general.  The  cause  of  the 
Reformation,  therefore,  although  it  suffered  no  little  from  so  por¬ 
tentous  an  illustration  of  the  dangers  resulting  from  the  destruction 
of  the  ancient  barriers,  escaped  all  contamination  in  itself,  and  its 
leaders  pursued  their  course  undeviatingly. 

Meanwhile  the  League  of  Schmalkalden  accomplished  its  purpose. 
Henry  VIII.  and  Francis  I.  were  eager  to  seize  the  opportunity  of 


1  Iverssenbroch  Bell.  Anabaptist,  cap.  15,  31. 


FRUITLESS  NEGOTIATIONS. 


439 


encouraging  dissension  in  the  empire.  The  Turk  became  more 
menacing  than  ever.  Charles,  always  ready  to  yield  for  a  time 
when  opposition  was  impolitic,  gracefully  abandoned  the  position 
assumed  at  Augsburg ;  and  the  negotiations  of  Schweinfurth  and 
Niirnberg  resulted  in  the  decree  of  the  Diet  of  Ratisbon  in  1532, 
by  which,  until  the  assembling  of  the  future  council,  all  religious 
disturbances  were  prohibited,  and  the  imperial  chamber  was  com¬ 
manded  to  undertake  no  prosecutions  on  account  of  heresy.  Tol¬ 
eration  was  thus  practically  established  for  the  moment,  but  the 
abbots  and  monks  who  had  been  ejected,  and  who  had  been  antici¬ 
pating  their  restoration,  became  naturally  restive.  Charles  cun¬ 
ningly  sent  from  Italy  full  powers  to  the  chamber  to  decide  as  to 
what  causes  arose  from  religious  disputes,  and  what  were  simply 
civil  or  criminal.  Thus  intrusted  with  the  interpretation  of  the 
Ratisbon  decree,  the  chamber  assumed  that  claims  on  church  lands 
were  not  included  in  the  forbidden  class,  while  old  edicts  prohibiting 
the  observances  of  Lutheranism  brought  all  religious  questions  within 
the  scope  of  criminal  law.  The  promised  toleration  was  thus  prac¬ 
tically  denied,  but,  fortunately  for  the  Protestants,  Ferdinand  was 
anxiously  negotiating  for  their  recognition  of  his  dignity  as  king  of 
the  Romans,  and  by  the  Transaction  of  Cadam  in  1533  he  purchased 
the  coveted  homage  by  accepting  their  construction  of  the  edict  of 
Ratisbon. 

Still  the  Protestants  complained  of  persecution  and  the  Catholics 
of  proselytism.  The  ensuing  fifteen  years  were  filled  with  a  series 
of  bootless  negotiations,  pretended  settlements,  quarrels,  recrimina¬ 
tions,  and  mutual  encroachments  which  year  after  year  occupied  the 
successive  Diets,  and  kept  Germany  constantly  trembling  on  the 
verge  of  a  desolating  civil  war.  It  would  be  useless  to  disturb  the 
dust  that  covers  these  forgotten  transactions,  which  can  teach  us 
nothing  save  that  the  Protestants  still  refused  to  recognize  that  the 
schism  was  past  human  power  to  heal ;  that  Rome,  recovering  from 
her  temporary  hesitation,  would  not  abate  one  jot  of  her  pretensions 
to  save  her  supremacy  over  half  of  Christendom ; 1  and  that  Charles, 


1  How  little  the  situation  was  com¬ 
prehended  is  amusingly  shown  in  a 
letter  from  an  enlightened  and  liberal 
prelate,  Johann  Schmidt,  Bishop  of 
Vienna,  to  Ferdinand,  in  1540,  con¬ 
cerning  some  proposed  negotiations 
then  on  foot  for  a  reconciliation  between 
the  churches.  He  lays  down  as  a  con¬ 


dition  precedent  to  reunion  that  all  the 
church  lands  confiscated  by  the  Protes¬ 
tants  shall  be  restored,  and  the  monastic 
orders  reestablished.  The  mesne  profits, 
he  admits,  cannot  be  collected,  but 
some  composition  for  them  should  be 
made. — Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil. 
Trident.  II.  649. 


440 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


as  a  wily  politician,  was  always  ready  in  adversity  to  abandon  with 
a  good  grace  that  which  he  had  arrogantly  seized  in  prosperity.1 
How  eager,  indeed,  were  the  Protestants  to  effect  some  compromise 
which  should  relieve  them  from  their  exceptional  position  is  strik¬ 
ingly  manifest  in  the  Articles  which  Melanchthon  and  his  friends, 
in  1535,  submitted  to  Francis  L,  after  the  Sorbonne  had  refused  to 
enter  into  a  disputation  or  conference  with  them.  In  this  document 
all  non-essentials  were  abandoned ;  doctrinal  dissidences  were  skil¬ 
fully  evaded,  and  stress  only  was  laid  upon  such  regulations  as  should 
remove  the  external  corruption  of  the  church.  Melanchthon  pro¬ 
posed  that  the  monastic  orders  should  be  continued,  but  that  the 
vows  should  not  be  perpetual,  so  that  religion  might  not  be  disgraced 
by  the  excesses  of  those  who  had  mistaken  their  vocation.  So,  as 
regards  priestly  celibacy,  he  proposed  that,  as  human  nature  ren¬ 
dered  it  impossible  to  supply  the  multitude  of  parishes  with  men 
able  to  live  in  continence,  those  who  could  not  preserve  their  purity 
should  be  allowed  to  marry ;  while,  to  prevent  the  dilapidation  of 
church  property,  the  higher  positions  should  be  reserved  to  men  of 
mature  age,  who  could  lead  a  single  life.2  The  Sorbonne,  in  reply, 
condescended  to  no  argument,  but  contented  itself  with  asserting 
that  the  Protestants  desired  the  subversion  of  all  religion,  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  Melanchthon  had  the  satisfaction  of  being  proclaimed 
a  traitor  by  the  Germans. 

In  all  this  the  only  point  which  possesses  special  interest  for  us  is 
another  authoritative  attempt  at  reconciling  the  irreconcilable  which 
occurred  in  1541.  After  a  conference  between  Melanchthon  and 
Dr.  Eck  at  W orms,  Charles  himself  presented  to  the  Diet  of  Katis- 
bon  a  statement  of  the  questions  in  dispute,  with  propositions  for  mu¬ 
tual  concession  and  compromise.  In  the  course  of  this,  he  reviewed 
the  practice  of  the  church  in  various  ages  with  regard  to  sacerdotal 
celibacy,  admitting  that  the  enforcement  of  it  was  not  in  accordance 
with  the  ancient  canons,  and  indicating  a  willingness  to  see  it  abro¬ 
gated.3  The  Protestants,  who  "were  ready  to  make  many  sacrifices 
for  peace,  hailed  this  intimation  with  triumph,  stoutly  insisting  on 
the  repeal  of  the  obnoxious  rule,  which  they  stigmatized  as  unjust 


1  An  elaborate  series  of  documents 
relating  to  these  transactions  may  be 
found  in  Goldast.  Constit.  Imp.  I.  511, 
III.  172-235.  Also  in  Le  Plat,  Mon¬ 
ument.  Concil.  Trident.  Yol.  II. 


2  Artie.  Melanch.  ad  Regem  Franci®, 
No.  x.,  xi.  (Le  Plat,  op.  cit.  II. 

785-7). 

3  Lib.  ad  Rationem  Concord,  ineun- 
dam  Art.  xxii.  \  13  (Goldast.  II.  199). 


THE  INTERIM. 


441 


and  pernicious.1  So  nearly  did  the  parties  at  length  approach  each 
other,  that  there  appeared  every  reason  to  anticipate  a  successful 
result  to  the  effort,  when  Paul  III.  again  interfered  and  pronounced 
all  the  proceedings  null  and  void,  as  the  church  alone  had  power  to 
regulate  its  internal  affairs.  The  expectations  excited  by  these  ne¬ 
gotiations  naturally  stimulated  the  desire  of  the  people  for  a  change 
in  the  discipline  of  the  church,  and  the  next  year  we  find  Paul  III. 
obliged  to  exhort  the  Bishop  of  Merseburg  to  resist  the  clamors  of 
his  subjects,  who  demanded  the  abrogation  of  priestly  celibacy  and 
the  use  of  the  cup  for  the  laity,  under  threats  of  ejecting  him.  The 
pope  evidently  considered  the  Germans  unduly  impatient,  since  they 
objected  to  await  the  assembling  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  which  was 
called  to  decide  upon  these  matters.2 

Charles  had  long  recognized  that  the  perpetual  menace  of  a  pow¬ 
erful  confederation  such  as  the  Schmalkaldic  League,  entertaining 
constant  relations  with  the  external  enemies  of  the  empire,  was  in¬ 
compatible  with  the  peace  of  Germany  and  with  an  imperial  power 
such  as  he  was  resolved  to  wield.  The  time  at  last  came  for  the 
development  of  his  plans.  The  skill  of  Alva  and  the  treachery  of 
Maurice  of  Saxony  were  crowned  with  success.  The  battle  of  Muhl- 
berg  broke  the  power  of  the  Protestants  utterly,  and  laid  them  help¬ 
less  at  the  feet  of  their  bitterest  foes.  Yet  the  progress  of  the  new 
ideas  had  already  placed  them  beyond  the  control  of  even  the  tri¬ 
umphant  Charles,  though  he  had  the  Elector  of  Saxony  and  the 
Landgrave  of  Hesse  in  his  dungeons.  When,  at  the  Diet  of  Augs¬ 
burg,  in  1548,  he  proposed  the  curious  arrangement  known  as  the 
Interim ,  by  which  he  hoped  to  keep  matters  quiet  until  the  final 
verdict  of  that  oecumenic  council  which  constantly  vanished  in  the 
distance,  he  felt  it  necessary  to  permit  all  married  priests  to  retain 
their  wives  until  the  question  should  be  decided  by  the  future  council. 
A  faint  expression  of  a  preference  for  celibacy,  moreover,  was  sig¬ 
nificant  both  in  what  it  said  and  what  it  left  unsaid.3 


1  Respons.  Protestant.  Art.  x.  $  3 
(Ibid.  II.  206).  This  was  still  more 
strongly  insisted  on  in  a  paper  subse¬ 
quently  drawn  up  by  Bucer  and  pre¬ 
sented  in  the  name  of  the  Protestants. 
— Respons.  Protestant,  c.  11-14  (Ibid, 
p.  213). 

2  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 

dent.  III.  152-3. 


3  Et  quanquam  cum  Apostolo  sen- 
tiendum  eum  qui  coelebs  est  curare  quae 
sunt  Domini  etc.  (I.  Cor.  vii.)  eoque 
magis  optandum  multos  inveniri  clericos 
qui  cum  ccelibes  sint  vere  etiam  con- 
tineant,  tamen  quum  multi  qui  minis- 
terii  ecclesiastici  functiones  tenent,  jam 
multis  in  locis  duxerint  uxores,  quas  a 
se  dimittere  nolint;  super  ea  re  gener- 
alis  concilii  sententia  expectetur,  cum 


442 


THE  REFORMATION  IN  GERMANY. 


The  Interim,  of  course,  satisfied  neither  party.  The  Catholics 
regarded  it  as  an  unauthorized  reformation,  the  Protestants  as  dis¬ 
guised  popery.  Charles,  however,  in  the  plenitude  of  his  power, 
obliged  many  of  the  Lutheran  states  to  accept  it ;  while,  as  regards 
the  Catholics,  he  was  perhaps  not  sorry  to  show  the  pope  that  he, 
too,  like  Henry  VIII.,  could  regulate  the  consciences  of  his  subjects, 
and  prescribe  their  religious  faith.  He  had  broken  with  Paul  III. ; 
the  council  of  Trent,  against  his  wishes,  had  been  removed  to  Bo¬ 
logna  on  a  frivolous  pretext ;  and  a  schism  like  that  of  England  was 
apparently  impending.  At  the  least,  Charles  might  not  unreason¬ 
ably  desire  to  manifest  that  at  last  he  was  independent  of  that  papal 
power  -with  -which  mutual  necessities  had  so  long  enforced  the  closest 
relations,  and  to  prove  that  deference  to  his  wishes  was  henceforth  to 
be  the  price  of  his  all-important  support.  He  demanded  that  legates 
should  be  sent  to  Germany  armed  with  extraordinary  powers,  among 
which  was  included  authority  to  grant  dispensations  to  married  priests. 
Paul  III.  referred  the  request  to  the  Sacred  College  and  to  the  council 
then  sitting  at  Bologna,  and  it  was  unanimously  replied  that  it  should 
be  granted,  with  the  limitations  that  monks  should  not  be  included, 
and  that  priests  thus  permitted  to  retain  their  wives  should  not  exer¬ 
cise  their  functions  or  enjoy  the  fruits  of  their  benefices.1  That  Paul 
forthwith  dispatched  three  nuncios  entrusted  with  authority  to  do  this 
shows  not  only  the  disposition  which  then  existed  to  relax  the  rigor 
of  the  canons  respecting  celibacy,  but  also  the  importance  which  the 
question  had  assumed  in  the  religious  disputes  of  the  time,2  though 
an  absolute  refusal  was  soon  afterwards  returned  to  the  request  of  a 
German  prince  (supposed  to  be  the  Duke  of  Bavaria)  requesting  for 


alioqui  mutatio  in  ea  re,  ut  nunc  sunt 
tempora,  sine  gravi  rerum  perturbatione 
nunc  fieri  non  possit. — Interim  cap. 
xxvi.  g  17. 

Charles  must  have  entertained  the 
expectation  that  a  change  would  be 
authorized  by  the  council  of  Trent,  or 
prudence  would  have  dictated  the 
policy  of  not  leaving  the  matter  open 
with  the  consciousness  that  the  diffi¬ 
culty  could  only  become  daily  greater 
by  tolerance. 

1  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  IV.  19-25. 

2  Pallavicini,  Storia  del  Concilio  di 
Trento  Lib.  xn.  c.  8.  Zaccaria  (Nuova 
Giustificaz.  pp.  145,  266),  while  admit¬ 


ting  the  fact,  states  that  the  original  of 
this  document  has  been  sought  for  in 
vain  ;  though  it  had  long  before  been 
published  by  Dom  Martene  (Ampliss. 
Collect.  VIII.  1203).  In  appointing, 
however,  Jodocus,  Bishop  of  Lubec,  as 
a  substitute  to  exercise  their  powers, 
the  legates  require  that  priests  thus 
restored  shall  abandon  their  wives — a 
condition  not  expressed  in  the  original 
bull  (Ibid.  p.  1211). 

Both  from  this  and  from  the  lan¬ 
guage  of  the  Interim,  it  appears 
that  even  the  Catholic  priesthood  had 
begun  to  arrogate  for  themselves  the 
right  of  marriage.  That  such  was  the 
case  to  a  great  extent  will  be  seen  here¬ 
after. 


THE  TRANSACTION  OF  PASSAU. 


443 


his  subjects  the  use  of  the  cup,  priestly  marriage,  and  the  relaxation 
of  the  obligation  of  fasting.1 

Temporary  expedients  and  compromises  such  as  these  are  inter¬ 
esting  merely  as  they  mark  the  progress  of  opinion.  Paltry  make¬ 
shifts  to  elude  the  decision  of  that  which  had  to  be  decided,  they 
exercised  little  real  influence  on  the  history  of  the  time.  It  is  true 
that  when  Charles,  in  1551,  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  issued  a  call 
for  the  reassembling  of  the  council  of  Trent,  he  confirmed  the  Interim 
until  that  council  should  decide  all  unsettled  questions,2  yet  this  con¬ 
firmation  was  destined  to  be  effective  for  a  period  ludicrously  brief. 
A  fresh  treason  of  Maurice  of  Saxony  undid  all  that  his  former 
plotting  had  accomplished ;  and,  while  Henry  II.  was  winning  at 
the  expense  of  the  empire  the  delusive  title  of  Conqueror,  Charles 
found  himself  reduced  to  the  hard  necessity  of  restoring  all  that  his 
crooked  policy  had  for  so  many  years  been  devoted  to  extorting. 
The  Transaction  of  Passau,  signed  August  2d,  1552,  gave  full  lib¬ 
erty  of  conscience  to  the  Lutheran  states,  until  a  national  council  or 
Diet  should  devise  means  of  restoring  the  unity  of  the  church ;  and 
in  case  such  means  could  not  be  agreed  upon,  then  the  rights  guar¬ 
anteed  by  the  Transaction  were  granted  in  perpetuity.3  If  Charles 
was  disposed  to  withdraw"  the  concessions  thus  exacted  of  him,  the 
miserable  siege  of  Metz  and  the  increasing  desire  for  abdication  pre¬ 
vented  him  from  attempting  it;  and,  at  the  Diet  of  Augsburg,  in 
1555,  the  states  and  cities  of  the  Augsburg  Confession  were  con¬ 
firmed  in  their  right  to  enjoy  the  practices  of  their  religion  in  peace.4 

The  long  struggle  thus  was  over.  The  public  law  of  Germany  at 
last  recognized  the  legality  of  the  transactions  based  upon  the  Refor¬ 
mation,  and  not  the  least  in  importance  among  those  transactions 
were  the  marriages  of  the  ministers  of  Christ. 


1  Le  Plat,  T.  IY.  p.  27. 

2  Recess,  ann.  1551  c.  10  (Goldast. 

II.  341). 


3  Transac.  Pataviens.  Artie,  de  Relig. 
(Ibid.  I.  573). 

4  Ibid.  I.  574. 


XXVI. 

THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


The  abrogation  of  celibacy  in  England  was  a  process  of  far  more 
perplexity  and  intricacy  than  in  any  other  country  which  adopted 
the  Reformation.  Perhaps  this  may  be  partially  explained  by  the 
temperament  of  the  race,  whose  fierce  spirit  of  independence  made 
them  quick  to  feel  and  impatient  to  suffer  the  manifold  evils  of  the 
sacerdotal  system,  while  their  reverential  conservatism  rendered  them 
less  disposed  to  adopt  a  radical  cure  than  their  Continental  neighbors. 

In  no  country  of  Europe  had  the  pretensions  of  the  papal  power 
been  so  resolutely  set  aside.  In  no  country  had  ecclesiastical  abuses 
been  more  earnestly  attacked  or  more  persistently  held  up  for  pop¬ 
ular  odium,  and  the  applause  which  greeted  all  who  boldly  denounced 
the  shortcomings  of  priest  and  prelate  shows  how  keenly  the  people 
felt  the  evils  to  which  they  were  exposed.  William  Langlande,  the 
monk  of  Malvern,  was  no  heretic,  yet  he  was  unsparing  in  his 
reprobation  of  the  corruptions  of  the  church: — 


“  Eight  so  out  of  holi  chirche, 
Alle  yveles  springeth, 

There  inparfit  preesthode  is, 
Prechours  and  techeris 

And  prechours  after  silver, 
Executours  and  sodenes, 


Somonours  and  hir  lemmannes  ; 

That  that  with  gile  was  geten, 
Ungraciousliche  is  despended ; 

So  harlotes  and  hores 

Arn  holpe  with  swiche  goodes, 

And  Goddes  folk,  for  defaute  thereof, 
For-faren  and  spillen.”1 


And  he  boldly  prophesied  the  violent  downfall  of  the  whole  fabric — 


Eight  so,  ye  clerkes, 

For  youre  coveitise,  er  longe, 
Shal  thei  demen  dos  ecclesicc , 
And  youre  pride  depose. 
Deposuit  potentes  de  sede ,  etc. 


Leveth  it  wel  ye  bisshopes 
The  lordshipe  of  your  londes 
For  evere  shul  ye  lese, 

And  lyven  as  levitici ,  etc.”2 


But  while  the  people  greeted  these  assaults  with  the  keenest  pleasure, 
they  were  attached  to  the  old  observances,  and  were  in  no  haste  to 


1  Vision  of  Piers  Ploughman, 
Wright’s  ed.,  pp.  300,  303. 

1  Ibid.  p.  325. — According  to  David 


Buchanan,  Langlande  was  also  author 
of  a  tract  “Pro  conjugio  sacerdotum.” 
(Ibid.  Introduction,  p.  x.) 


COLET  AND  MORE. 


445 


see  the  predictions  of  the  poet  fulfilled.  A  little  sharp  persecution 
was  sufficient  to  suppress  all  outward  show  of  Lollardry,  and  there 
was  no  chance  in  England  for  the  fierce  revolutionary  enthusiasm 
of  the  Taborites. 

As  the  sixteenth  century  opened,  John  Colet  did  good  work  in 
disturbing  the  stagnation  of  the  schools  by  his  contempt  for  the 
petrified  theological  science  of  the  schoolmen.  His  endeavor  to 
revert  to  the  Scriptures  as  the  sole  source  of  religious  belief  was  a 
step  in  advance,  while  he  was  unsparing  in  his  denunciations  of  the 
corruptions  which  were  as  rife  in  the  English  church  as  we  have  seen 
them  elsewhere.  Yet  Colet,  though  at  one  time  taxed  with  heretical 
leanings,  kept  carefully  within  the  pale  of  orthodoxy,  and  seems 
never  to  have  entertained  the  idea  that  the  evils  which  he  deplored 
were  to  be  attacked  save  by  a  renewal  of  the  fruitless  iteration  of 
obsolete  canons.1  Perhaps,  however,  his  friend  and  disciple,  Sir 
Thomas  More,  is  the  best  example  of  this  frame  of  mind  in  Eng¬ 
land’s  worthiest  men,  the  besetting  weakness  of  which  made  the 
Anglican  reformation  a  struggle  whose  vicissitudes  can  scarce  be 
said  to  have  even  yet  reached  their  final  development. 

Before  Luther  had  raised  the  standard  of  revolt,  More  keenly 
appreciated  the  derelictions  of  the  church,  and  allowed  his  wit  to 
satirize  its  vices  with  a  freedom  which  showed  the  scantiest  respect 
for  the  sanctity  claimed  by  its  hierarchy.2  Yet  when  Luther  came 
with  his  heresies  to  sweep  away  all  abuses,  More’s  gentle  and  tender 


1  In  a  sermon  before  the  Convocation 
of  1512,  Colet  is  very  severe  upon  the 
vices  of  the  church — “  we  are  troubled 
in  these  days  by  heretics — men  mad 
with  strange  folly— but  this  heresy  of 
theirs  is  not  so  pestilential  and  perni¬ 
cious  to  us  and  the  people  as  the  vicious 
and  depraved  lives  of  the  clergy” — 
and  he  urges  the  prelates  to  revive  the 
ancient  canons,  the  enforcement  of 
which  would  purify  the  church.  (See- 
hohm’s  Oxford  Reformers  of  1498,  p. 
170.  London,  1867.) 

The  title  of  this  work  seems  to  me  a 
misnomer.  Neither  Colet  nor  Erasmus 
had  the  aggressive  spirit  of  martyrdom 
which  was  essential  to  the  character  of 
a  reformer  in  those  fierce  times.  They 
could  deplore  existing  evils,  but  lacked 
all  practical  boldness  in  applying  reme¬ 
dies,  and  their  influence  is  only  to  be 
traced  in  the  minds  which  they  unwit¬ 
tingly  trained  to  do  work  which  they 
themselves  abhorred. 


2  Thus,  in  his  Epigrams,  he  ridicules 
the  bishops  as  a  class : — 

“Tam  male  cantasti  possis  ut  episcopus 
esse, 

Tam  bene  legist!,  ut  non  tamen  esse  queas. 
Non  satis  esse  putet,  si  quis  vitabit  utrum- 
vis, 

Seel  fieri  si  vis  prsesul,  utrumque  cave.’’ 
T.  Mori  Opp.  p.  249.  Eranco- 
furti,  1689. 

And  he  addresses  a  parish  priest : — 

“  Quid  faciant  fugiantve  tui,  quo  cernere 
possint, 

Vita  potest  claro  pro  speculo  esse  tua. 
Tantum  opus  admonitu  est,  ut  te  intueantur, 
et  ut  tu 

Quse  facis,  ham  fugiant:  quse  fugis,  hoac 
faciant.” 

Ibid.  p.  247. 

See  also  his  epigrams  “  In  Posthumum 
Episcopum,”  “In  Episcopum  illitera- 
tum,”  “  De  Nautis  ejicientibus  Mona- 
chum,”  etc. 


446 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


spirit  was  roused  to  a  vulgarity  of  vituperation  which  earned  for  him 
a  distinguished  place  among  the  foul-mouthed  polemics  of  the  time, 
and  which  is  absolutely  unfit  for  translation.1  As  regards  ascetic 
observances,  before  the  Lutheran  movement,  More  seems  to  have 
inclined  towards  condemning  all  practices  that  were  not  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  human  nature,  though  he  appears  willing  to  admit  that 
there  may  be  some  special  sanctity,  though  not  wisdom,  in  conquer¬ 
ing  nature.2  After  the  commencement  of  the  Reformation,  however, 
his  views  underwent  a  reaction,  and  he  not  only  defended  monastic 
vows,  but  he  even  went  so  far  as  to  argue  that  by  the  recent  mar¬ 
riages  of  the  Saxon  reformers  God  had  manifested  his  signal  dis¬ 
pleasure,  for  in  the  old  law  true  priests  could  be  joined  only  to  the 
chastest  virgins,  while  God  permitted  these  false  pastors  to  take  to 
wife  none  but  public  strumpets.3  If  he  accused  Luther  of  sweeping 
away  the  venerable  traditions  of  man  and  of  God,4  he  showed  how 
conscientious  was  this  rigid  conservatism  when  he  laid  his  head  upon 
the  block  in  testimony  for  the  principal  creation  and  bulwark  of  tra¬ 
dition — the  papal  supremacy. 

A  community  thus  halting  between  an  acute  perception  of  existing 
evils  and  a  resolute  determination  not  to  remove  them  was  exactly 
in  the  temper  to  render  the  great  movement  of  the  sixteenth  century 


1  Responsio  ad  Lutherum,  passim: 
“Pater,  frater,  potator  Lutherus,” 
seems  to  be  a  favorite  expression,  but  is 
mild  in  comparison  with  others — 
“  novum  inferorum  Deum,”  “  Satanista 
Lutherus,”  “  pediculoso  fraterculo.” 
Luther’s  friends  are  “  nebulonum,  po¬ 
tatorum,  scortatorum,  sicariorum,  sena- 
tum,”  and  More  winds  up  his  theologi¬ 
cal  argument  with — “  furiosum  frater- 
culum  et  latrinarium  nebulonem  cum 
suis  furiis  et  furoribus,  cum  suis  merdis 
et  stercoribus  cacantem  cacatumque 
relinquere.” 

Luther  was  himself  a  master  in 
theological  abuse,  but  More’s  admiring 
biographer,  Stapleton,  boasts  that  the 
German  was  appalled  at  the  superior 
vigor  of  the  Englishman,  and  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life  he  declined  further 
controversy — “magis  mutus  factus  est 
quam  piscis.”  (Stapletoni  Vit.  T. 
Mori  cap.  iv.)  As  More,  however, 
published  the  tract  under  the  name  of 
William  Rosse,  an  Englishman  who 
had  recently  died  in  Rome,  Luther’s 
reticence  is  more  easily  to  be  accounted 
for. 


2  In  one  passage  More  describes  his 
Utopians  as  considering  virtue  to  con¬ 
sist  in  living  according  to  nature. 
“  Nempe  virtutem  definiunt,  secundum 
naturam  vivere:  ad  id  siquidem  a  Deo 
institutes  esse  nos.  .  .  .  Yitam  ergo 
jucundam,  inquiunt,  id  est  voluptatem, 
tanquam  operationum  omnium  finem, 
ipsa  nobis  natura  praescribit :  ex  cujus 
praescripto  vivere,  virtutem  definiunt  ” 
(Utopiae  Lib.  n.  Tit.  de  Peregrinatione). 
In  another  passage,  however,  he  de¬ 
scribes  two  sects  or  heresies,  the  one 
consisting  of  men  who  abstained  from 
marriage  and  the  use  of  flesh,  the  other 
of  those  who  devoted  themselves  to 
labor,  marrying  as  a  duty  and  indulging 
in  food  to  increase  their  strength,  and 
says  of  them  “  Hos  Utopiani  pruden- 
tiores,  at  illos  sanctiores  reputant  (Ibid. 
Tit.  de  Religionibus). 

3  Respons.  ad  Lutherum  Perorat. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  this 
was  written  after  his  friend  Erasmus 
had  publicly  given  in  his  adhesion  to 
marriage  as  the  only  remedy  for  sacer¬ 
dotal  corruption. 

4  Ibid.  Lib.  i.  cap.  iv. 


wolsey’s  assault  on  the  monasteries.  447 


as  disastrous  to  themselves  as  possible.  How  to  meet  the  inevitable 
under  such  conditions  was  a  problem  which  well  might  tax  the 
acutest  intellect,  and  Wolsey,  whose  fate  it  was  to  undertake  the 
task,  seems  to  have  been  inspired  with  more  than  his  customary 
audacious  ingenuity  in  seeking  the  solution. 

Wolsey  himself  was  no  ascetic,  as  the  popular  inscription  over  the 
door  of  his  palace — “  Domus  meretricium  Domini  Cardinalis  ” — 
sufficiently  attests.  A  visitation  of  the  religious  houses  undertaken 
in  1511  by  Archbishop  Warham  had  revealed  all  the  old  iniquities 
without  calling  forth  any  remedy  beyond  an  admonition.1  In  1518, 
Wolsey  himself  had  attempted  a  systematic  reformation  in  his  diocese 
of  York,  and  had  revived  the  ancient  canons  punishing  concubinage 
among  his  priesthood;2  and  in  1519  we  find  him  applying  to  Leo  X. 
for  a  Bull  conferring  special  power  to  correct  the  enormities  of  the 
clergy.3  When,  in  1523,  he  proposed  a  general  visitation  for  the 
reformation  of  the  ecclesiastical  body,  Fox,  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
urged  it  as  in  the  highest  degree  necessary,  stating  that  he  himself 
had  for  three  years  been  devoting  all  his  energies  to  restore  discipline 
in  his  diocese,  and  that  his  efforts  had  been  so  utterly  fruitless  that 
he  had  abandoned  all  hope  of  aijy  change  for  the  better.4  Cranmer, 
indeed,  in  his  “  Confutation  of  Unwritten  Verities,”  had  no  hesitation 
to  say  that  “  within  my  memory,  which  is  above  thirty  years,  and 
also  by  the  information  of  others  that  be  twenty  years  elder  than  I, 
I  could  never  perceive  or  learn  that  any  one  priest,  under  the  pope’s 
kingdom,  was  ever  punished  for  advoutry  by  his  ordinary.”5  It 
may  readily  be  believed,  therefore,  that  Wolsey  fully  recognized  the 
utter  inefficiency  of  the  worn-out  weapons  of  discipline.  Yet  he  was 
too  shrewd  a  statesman  not  to  foresee  that  reformation  from  within 
or  from  without  must  come,  and,  in  taking  the  initiative,  he  com¬ 
menced  by  quietly  and  indirectly  attacking  the  monastic  orders. 
As  a  munificent  patron  of  letters,  it  was  natural  that  he  should 
emulate  Merton  and  Wykeham  in  founding  a  college  at  Oxford ; 
and  “  Cardinal’s  College,”  now  Christ  Church,  became  the  lever 
with  which  to  topple  over  the  vast  monastic  system  of  England. 

The  development  of  the  plan  was  characteristically  insidious. 
By  a  Bull  of  April  3d,  1524  (confirmed  by  Henry,  May  10th), 


1  Eroude’s  England,  Ch.  x. 

2  Wilkins  III.  669,  678. 

3  Card.  Eboracens.  Epist.  v.  (Mar- 

tene  Ampliss.  Collect.  III.  1289). 


4  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memorials,  T.  I. 
App.  p.  19. 

5  Strype’s  Memorials  of  Cranmer, 
Bk.  II.  cli.  v. 


448 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


Clement  VII.  authorized  him  to  suppress  the  priory  of  St.  Fredis- 
wood  at  Oxford,  and  to  remove  the  monks  for  the  purpose  of  con¬ 
verting  it  into  a  “Collegium  Clericorum  Seculorum.”1  This  was 
followed  by  a  Bull,  dated  August  21st  of  the  same  year,  empowering 
him  as  legate  to  make  inquisition  and  reformation  in  all  religious 
houses  throughout  the  kingdom,  to  incarcerate  and  punish  the 
inmates,  and  to  deprive  them  of  their  property  and  privileges,  all 
grants  or  charters  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding.2  The  real  pur¬ 
port  of  this  extraordinary  commission  is  shown  by  the  speedy  issue 
of  yet  another  Bull,  dated  September  11th,  conceding  to  him-  the 
confiscation  of  monasteries  to  the  amount  of  3000  ducats  annual 
rental,  for  the  endowment  of  his  college,  and  alleging  as  a  reason 
for  the  measure  that  many  establishments  had  not  more  than  five  or 
six  inmates.3 

The  affair  was  now  fully  in  train,  and  proceeded  with  accelerating 
momentum.  On  the  3d  of  July,  1525,  Henry  confirmed  the  incor¬ 
poration  of  the  college;  his  letters-patent  of  May  1st,  1526,  enu¬ 
merate  eighteen  monasteries  suppressed  for  its  benefit,  while  other 
letters  of  May  10th  grant  seventy-one  churches  or  rectories  for  its 
support,  and  yet  other  grants  are  alluded  to  as  made  in  letters  which 
have  not  been  preserved.4  In  1528  these  were  followed  by  various 
other  donations  of  religious  houses  and  manors;  and  during  the 
same  year  Wolsey  founded  another  Cardinal’s  College  at  Ipswich, 
which  became  a  fresh  source  of  absorption.5 

Had  Henry  VIII.  entertained  any  preconceived  design  of  sup¬ 
pressing  the  religious  houses,  his  impatient  temper  would  scarcely 
have  allowed  him  to  remain  so  long  a  witness  of  this  spoliation 
without  taking  his  share  and  carrying  the  matter  out  with  his 
accustomed  boldness  and  disregard  of  consequences.  At  length, 
however,  he  claimed  his  portion,  and  procured  from  Clement  a  Bull 
dated  November  2d,  1528,  conceding  to  him,  for  the  benefit  of  the 
old  foundations  of  the  King’s  Colleges  at  Cambridge  and  Windsor, 
the  suppression  of  monasteries  to  the  annual  value  of  8000  ducats.6 


1  Rymer’s  Fcedera,  XIV.  15. 

2  Wilkins  III.  704. — Bishop  Burnet 
says  that  Wolsey ’s  design  in  procuring 
this  Bull  was  to  suppress  all  monas¬ 
teries,  but  that  he  was  persuaded  to 
abandon  his  purpose  on  account  of 
opposition  and  dread  of  scandals. — 
Hist.  Reform.  Vol.  I.  p.  20  (Ed.  1679). 

3  Rymer,  XIV.  24. — Confirmed  by 

the  king,  January  7,  1525  (Ibid.  p.  32). 


4  Ibid.  pp.  156-6,  172-5. 

5  Ibid.  pp.  240-44,  250-58.  See  a 
letter  of  the  English  ambassadors  at 
Rome  to  W olsey ,  describing  a  conference 
on  this  subject  with  the  Pope,  wherein 
he  freely  acknowledged  the  propriety  ot 
destroying  those  houses  which  were 
nothing  but  a  “  Scandalum  religionis.” 
— Strype,  Eccles.  Memorials,  I.  App.  58. 

c  Rymer,  XIV.  pp.  270-1. 


wolsey’s  assault  on  the  monasteries.  449 


This  was  followed  by  another,  a  few  days  later,  empowering  Wolsey 
and  Campeggi,  co-legates  in  the  affair  of  Queen  Katharine’s  divorce, 
to  unite  to  other  monasteries  all  those  containing  less  than  twelve 
inmates — thus  suppressing  the  latter,  of  which  the  number  was  very 
large.1  Another  Bull  of  the  same  date  (November  12th)  attacked 
the  larger  abbeys,  which  had  thus  far  escaped.  It  ordered  the  two 
cardinals,  under  request  from  the  king,  to  inquire  into  the  propriety 
of  suppressing  the  rich  monasteries  enjoying  over  10,000  ducats  per 
annum,  for  the  purpose  of  converting  them  into  bishoprics,  on  the 
plea  that  the  seventeen  sees  of  the  kingdom  w^ere  insufficient  for  the 
spiritual  wants  of  the  people.2  The  report  of  the  cardinals  apparently 
seconded  the  views  of  Henry,  for  Clement  granted  to  them,  May 
29th,  1529,  the  power  of  creating  and  arranging  bishoprics  at  their 
discretion,  and  of  sacrificing  additional  monasteries  when  necessary 
to  provide  adequate  revenues.3  It  is  probable  that  the  monks  who 
had  been  unceremoniously  deprived  of  their  possessions  did  not  in 
all  cases  submit  without  resistance,  for  the  Bull  of  November  12th, 

1528,  suppressing  the  smaller  houses,  was  repeated  August  31st, 

1529,  with  the  suggestive  addition  of  authority  to  call  in  the  assist¬ 
ance  of  the  secular  arm.4 

Wolsey  was  now  tottering  to  his  fall.  Process  against  him  was 
commenced  .on  October  9th,  1529,  and  on  the  18th  the  Great  Seal 
was  delivered  to  More.  His  power,  however,  had  lasted  long  enough 
to  break  down  all  the  safeguards  which  had  for  so  many  centuries 
grown  around  the  sacred  precincts  of  ecclesiastical  property;  and 
the  rich  foundations  which  covered  so  large  a  portion  of  English  ter¬ 
ritory  lay  defenceless  before  the  cupidity  of  a  despot,  who  rarely 
allowed  any  consideration,  human  or  divine,  to  interfere  with  his 
wishes,  whose  extravagance  rendered  him  eager  to  find  new  sources 
of  supply  for  an  exhausted  treasury,  and  whose  temper  had  been 
aroused  by  the  active  support  lent  by  the  preaching  friars  to  the 
party  of  Queen  Katharine  in  the  affair  of  the  divorce.  Yet  it  is 
creditable  to  Henry’s  self-command  that  the  blow  did  not  fall  sooner, 
although  it  came  at  last. 

It  is  not  my  province  to  enter  into  the  details  of  Henry’s  miserable 
quarrel  with  Borne,  which,  except  in  its  results,  is,  from  every  point 


1  Rymer,  XIY.  272-3. 

2  Ibid.  273-5. 

8  Ibid.  291-3. 

4  Ibid.  345-6.  A  document  showing 


one  phase  of  the  struggle  may  be  found 
in  Strvpe’s  Memorials  I.  Append,  p.  89. 
It  is  to  the  credit  of  Wolsey  that  he 
retained  his  interest  in  his  colleges  even 
after  his  fall.  See  his  letter  to  Gardiner 
of  July  23rd,  1530  (Ibid.  p.  92;. 


29 


450 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


of  view,  one  of  the  most  humiliating  pages  of  history.  The  year 
1532  saw  the  proclamation  of  the  king  commanding  the  support  of 
his  subjects  in  the  impending  rupture,  and  the  subscription  of  the 
clergy  to  a  paper  which,  with  unparalleled  servility,  placed  the  whole 
ecclesiastical  constitution  of  the  kingdom  in  his  absolute  power.1 
The  following  year  his  long-protracted  divorce  from  Katharine  of 
Arragon  was  consummated ;  the  annates  were  withdrawn  from  the 
pope,  and  Henry  assumed  the  title  of  Supreme  Head  of  the  Church 
of  England.2  In  1535  an  obedient  Parliament  confirmed  the  acts 
of  the  sovereign,  and  forbade  the  promulgation  of  any  canons  by 
synods  or  convocations  without  his  approval.  The  power  of  the 
pope  was  abolished  by  proclamation;  and  Universities  and  prelates 
rivalled  each  other  in  obsequiously  transferring  to  Henry  the  rever¬ 
ence  due  to  Rome.3 

The  greater  portion  of  the  monasteries,  which  had  already  experi¬ 
enced  a  foretaste  of  the  wrath  to  come,  hastened  to  proclaim  their 
adhesion  to  the  new  theological  autocracy,  and  means  not  the  most 
gentle  were  found  to  persuade  the  remainder.  The  Carthusians  of 
the  Charter  House  of  London  gave  especial  trouble,  and  the  contest 
between  them  and  the  king  affords  a  vivid  picture  of  the  times. 
There  is  something  very  affecting  in  the  account  given  by  Strype  of 
the  humble  but  resolute  resignation  with  which  the  prior  and  his 
monks  prepared  themselves  for  martyrdom  in  vindication  of  the 
papal  supremacy.4  Their  courage  was  soon  put  to  the  test.  Be¬ 
tween  the  27th  of  April  and  the  4th  of  August,  1535,  the  prior 
and  eleven  of  his  monks  were  put  to  death  with  all  the  horrors  of 
the  punishment  for  high  treason ; 5  but  neither  this  nor  the  efforts 
of  a  new  and  more  loyal  prior  were  able  to  produce  submission.  In 
1536  ten  of  the  most  unyielding  were  sent  to  other  houses,  where 
several  of  them  were  subsequently  executed,  and  in  1537  ten  more 
were  thrown  into  Newgate,  where  nine  of  them  died  almost  immedi¬ 
ately — it  is  to  be  presumed  from  the  rigor  of  their  confinement  and 
the  foulness  of  the  jail.  In  1539  the  few  that  remained  were  ex¬ 
pelled  ;  the  house  was  seized  and  used  as  an  arsenal,  until  it  was 


1  Pecock’s  Records  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  No.  276  (Yol.  II.  p.  259). 

3  Wilkins  III.  755-G2. 

3  Ibid.  770-82,  789. — Parliamentary 
Hist,  of  England,  I.  525.  In  1532 
Henry  had  complained  to  his  Parlia¬ 
ment  that  the  clergy  were  but  half 


subjects  to  him,  in  consequence  of  their 
oaths  to  the  pope,  and  he  desired  that 
some  remedy  should  be  found  for  this 
state  of  things  (Ibid.  p.  519). 

4  Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  195. 

5  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  p.  40 
(Camden  Soc.). — Strype,  op.  cit.  p.  197. 


SUPPRESSION  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  HOUSES.  451 

given  to  Sir  Edward  North,  who  changed  it  into  a  residence,  pulling 
down  the  cloisters  and  converting  the  church  into  his  parlor.1 

The  most  conspicuous  of  the  recalcitrants,  however,  was  the  pow¬ 
erful  order  of  the  Franciscans.  These  refused  the  oath  exacted  of 
them,  causing  no  little  trouble,  and  affording  a  cover  for  the  intrigues 
of  that  large  body  of  the  clergy  wLo  wTere  dissatisfied  with  the  inno¬ 
vations,  but  afraid  of  open  opposition.2  This  precipitated  the  ruin 
of  the  monastic  orders,  which  could  not,  under  any  circumstances, 
have  been  long  delayed,  and  a  general  visitation  was  considered  the 
most  effective  means  of  encompassing  their  destruction.  It  was  ac¬ 
cordingly  ordered  in  1585,  and  as  their  immorality  and  neglect  of 
their  sacred  duties  had  passed  almost  into  a  proverb,  there  was  not 
much  difficulty  in  accumulating  evidence  to  justify  the  measure. 
The  visitation  was  commanded  to  examine  into  the  foundation,  title, 
history,  condition  of  discipline,  and  number  and  character  of  the 
inmates  of  all  religious  houses;3  and,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
the  report  disclosed  a  state  of  affairs  which  called  for  the  immediate 
removal  of  so  foul  a  source  of  corruption  and  scandal.  The  visitors 
had  their  work  assigned  them  in  advance,  and  they  performed  it 
thoroughly  ;•  but  we  cannot  assume  that  the  evils  which  they 
described  were  the  creation  of  their  own  invention  to  gratify  the 
wishes  and  advance  the  purposes  of  their  master. 

One  of  the  earliest  abbeys  visited  was  that  of  Langdon,  where  the 
visitor,  Dr.  Leighton,  suddenly  breaking  open  the  abbot’s  door,  found 
him  with  his  concubine,  whose  disguise  as  a  man  was  discovered 
secreted  in  a  coffer.  Leighton’s  account  of  this  little  adventure 
“  scribullede  this  Satterday,”  to  his  patron,  Cromwell,  is  full  of  humor, 
showing  how  thoroughly  he  enjoyed  his  success,  and  how  fully  he 
wTas  assured  that  the  Secretary  would  likewise  be  gratified  by  it.4 
Bishop  Burnet’s  general  summary  of  the  result  of  the  visitation 
asserts  that  “  for  the  lewdness  of  the  confessors  of  nunneries,  and 
the  great  corruption  of  that  state,  wdiole  houses  being  found  almost 
all  with  child ;  for  the  dissoluteness  of  abbots  and  the  other  monks 
and  friars,  not  only  with  whores,  but  married  women;  and  for  their 
unnatural  lusts  and  other  brutal  practices ;  these  are  not  fit  to  be 
spoken  of,  much  less  enlarged  on,  in  a  work  of  this  nature.  The 
full  report  of  the  visitation  is  lost,  yet  I  have  seen  an  extract  of  a 


1  Strype,  op.  cit.  pp.  277-8. 

2  Burnet  I.  182. 


3  Wilkins  III.  787. 

4  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  p.  175. 


452 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


part  of  it,  concerning  144  houses,  that  contains  abominations  in  it 
equal  to  any  that  were  in  Sodom.”1 

The  good  bishop  was  not  likely  to  extenuate  what  he  had  read,  but 
we  yet  may  readily  believe  the  truth  of  his  account  of  it,  for  we  can¬ 
not  assume  that  the  charges  were  manufactured,  like  the  accusations 
against  the  Templars,  for  the  purpose  of  serving  as  an  excuse  for 
confiscation.  The  monasteries  were  not  likely  to  have  improved  in 
morals  since  Archbishop  Morton  described  a  similar  condition  of 
affairs  half  a  century  earlier ;  nor  is  there  any  ground  for  imagining 
them  better  than  their  Continental  contemporaries,  whose  lapses  were 
the  subject  of  animadversion  by  censors  favorable  to  the  monastic 
system.  Scarce  anything,  indeed,  can  be  conceived  worse  than  the 
condition  of  the  German  convents  as  described  in  a  document  drawn 
up  by  command  of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand  to  stimulate  the  sluggish¬ 
ness  of  the  council  of  Trent.2  A  short  account  of  “  The  Manner  of 
Dissolving  the  Abbeys,”  by  a  contemporary,3  states  the  result  of  the 
visitation  in  terms  even  stronger  than  those  of  Burnet,  and  Strype 
gives  some  most  suggestive  extracts  from  the  report  of  the  visitation 
of  the  diocese  of  Litchfield.4  Descriptions  of  the  disorders  of  special 
houses  are  very  frequent  in  the  private  letters  of  the  visitors  and 
commissioners  to  Cromwell,5  wThich  may  be  the  more  readily  believed, 
since  they  also  report  favorably  of  many  abbeys  as  being  well  gov¬ 
erned,  and  of  the  utmost  benefit  to  their  neighborhoods  through  their 
generous  hospitality  and  charity.  It  should  be  added  that,  in  some 
districts  at  least,  the  morals  of  the  laity  were  no  better  than  those 
of  the  clergy.6  Nicander  Nucius,  who  visited  England  about  the 
year  1545,  in  relating  the  suppression  of  the  monastic  orders,  gives 
as  bad  an  account  of  their  discipline  as  Burnet.  He  is  not,  of  course, 
an  original  authority,  but,  as  an  impartial  observer,  his  statements 
are  worthy  of  consideration  as  reflecting  the  current  views  of  society 
at  the  period.7  It  wras  evidently  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  public 
opinion  abroad  that  a  book  on  the  subject  was  written  in  Italian  by 
William  Thomas,  who  summed  up  by  stating  that  the  visitors  found 
“not  seven,  but  more  than  700,000  deadly  sins,”  and  who  received 
the  reward  of  his  vivacity  by  being  put  to  death  under  Queen  Mary.8 


1  Hist.  Keform.  I.  190-1. 

2  Le  Plat  Y.  244-5. 

3  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  p.  112. 

4  Eccles.  Memorials,  I.  256-7. 

5  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  Nos. 


xvii.,  xxi.,  xxiv.,  xlii.,  xlv.,  xlvii., 
xcviii.,  &c. 

6  Ibid.  No.  cxx. 

7  Travels  of  Nicander  Nucius,  pp. 
68-71  (Camden  Soc.). 

8  Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  249. 


453 


THE  BEGGAES’  PETITION. 


A  portion  of  the  people  were  ready  and  eager  to  welcome  the  sec¬ 
ularization  of  the  religious  houses.  Their  views  and  arguments  are 
set  forth  with  more  force  than  elegance  in  the  well-known  “  Beggars’ 
Petition,”  which  calculates  that,  besides  the  tithes,  one-third  of  the 
kingdom  was  ecclesiastical  property,  and  that  these  vast  possessions 
were  devoted  to  the  support  of  a  body  of  men  who  found  their  sole 
serious  occupation  in  destroying  the  peace  of  families  and  corrupting 
the  virtue  of  women.  The  economical  injury  to  the  commonwealth, 
and  the  interference  with  the  royal  prerogative  of  the  ecclesiastical 
system,  were  argued  with  much  cogency,  and  the  king  was  entreated 
to  destroy  it  by  the  most  summary  methods.  That  any  one  should 
venture  to  publish  so  violent  an  attack  upon  the  existing  church,  at 
a  time  when  punishment  so  prompt  followed  all  indiscretions  of  this 
nature,  renders  this  production  peculiarly  significant  both  as  to  the 
temper  of  the  educated  portion  of  the  people,  and  the  presumed  in¬ 
tentions  of  the  king.1 

The  visitation  produced  the  desired  effect.  In  1536,  after  reading 
the  report,  Parliament  passed  without  opposition  a  bill  suppressing, 


1  As  published  in  the  Harleian  Mis¬ 
cellany,  the  Beggars’  Petition  bears  the 
date  of  1538,  but  internal  evidence 
would  assign  it  to  a  time  anterior  to 
the  suppression  of  the  monasteries,  and 
Burnet  attributes  it  to  the  period  under 
consideration,  saying  that  it  was  written 
by  Simon  Fish,  of  Gray’s  Inn,  that  it 
took  mightily  with  the  public,  and  that 
when  it  was  handed  to  the  king  by 
Ann  Boleyn,  “he  lik’d  it  well,  and 
would  not  suffer  anything  to  be  done 
to  the  author”  (Hist.  Keform.  I.  160). 
Froude,  indeed,  assigns  it  to  the  date  of 
1528,  and  states  that  Wolsey  issued  a 
proclamation  against  it,  and  further, 
that  Simon  Fish,  the  author,  died  in 
1528  (Hist.  Engl.  Ch.  vi.),  while 
Strype  (Eccles.  Memorialsl.  165)  in¬ 
cludes  it  in  a  list  of  books  prohibited 
by  Cuthbert,  Bishop  of  London,  in 
1526.  In  the  edition  of  1546,  the  date 
of  1524  is  attributed  to  it. 

The  tone  of  that  which  was  thus 
equally  agreeable  to  the  court  and  to 
the  city,  may  be  judged  from  the  fol¬ 
lowing  extracts,  which  are  by  no  means 
the  plainest  spoken  that  might  be 
selected. 

“  §  13.  Yea,  and  what  do  they  more  ? 
Truly,  nothing  but  apply  themselves 
by  all  the  sleights  they  may  to  have  to 
do  with  qvery  man’s  wife,  every  man’s 


daughter,  and  every  man’s  maid ;  that 
cuckoldry  should  reign  over  all  among 
your  subjects;  that  no  man  should 
know  his  own  child ;  that  their  bas¬ 
tards  might  inherit  the  possessions  of 
every  man,  to  put  the  right-begotten 
children  clean  beside  their  inheritance, 
in  subversion  of  all  estates  and  godly 
order. 

“  \  16.  Who  is  she  that  will  set  her 
hands  to  work  to  get  three-pence  a  day, 
and  may  have  at  least  twenty-pence  a 
day  to  sleep  an  hour  with  a  friar,  a 
monk,  or  a  priest?  Who  is  he  that 
would  labour  for  a  groat  a  day,  and 
may  have  at  least  twelve-pence  a  day 
to  be  a  bawd  to  a  priest,  a  monk,  or  a 
friar  ? 

“  $  31.  Wherefore,  if  your  grace  will 
set  their  sturdy  loobies  abroad  in  the 
world,  to  get  them  wives  of  their  own, 
to  get  their  living  with  their  labour,  in 
the  sweat  of  their  faces,  according  to 
the  commandment  of  God,  Gen.  iii. ,  to 
give  other  idle  people,  by  their  example, 
occasion  to  go  to  labour ;  tye  these  holy, 
idle  thieves  to  the  carts  to  be  whipped 
naked  about  every  market-town,  till 
they  will  fall  to  labour,  that  they  may, 
by  their  importunate  begging,  not  take 
away  the  alms  that  the  good  Christian 
people  would  give  unto  us  sore,  impo¬ 
tent,  miserable  people  your  bedemen.” 


454 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


for  tlie  benefit  of  the  crown,  all  monasteries  with  less  than  twelve 
inmates  or  possessing  a  revenue  under  <£200  per  annum.  Three 
hundred  and  seventy-six  houses  were  swept  away  by  this  act,  and  the 
“  Court  of  Augmentations  of  the  King’s  Revenue”  was  established  to 
take  charge  of  the  lands  and  goods  thus  summarily  escheated.  The 
rents  which  thus  fell  to  the  king  were  valued  at  £32,000  a  year, 
and  the  movable  property  at  £100,000,  wdiile  the  commissioners 
were  popularly  supposed  to  have  been  “as  careful  to  enrich  them¬ 
selves  as  to  increase  the  king’s  revenue.”  Stokesley,  Bishop  of 
London,  remarked,  concerning  the  transaction,  that  “these  lesser 
houses  were  as  thorns  soon  plucked  up,  but  the  great  abbots  were 
like  putrefied  old  oaks,  yet  they  must  needs  follow,  and  so  would 
others  do  in  Christendom  before  many  years  were  passed.”  But 
Stokesley,  however  true  a  prophet  in  the  general  scope  of  his  obser¬ 
vation,  was  mistaken  as  to  the  extreme  facility  of  eradicating  the 
humble  thorns.  The  country  was  not  as  easily  reconciled  to  the 
change  as  the  versatile,  more  intelligent,  and  less  reverent  inhabi¬ 
tants  of  the  cities.  Henry,  unluckily,  not  only  had  not  abrogated 
Purgatory  by  proclamation,  but  had  specially  recommended  the  con¬ 
tinuance  of  prayers  and  masses  for  the  dead,1  and  thousands  were 
struck  with  dread  as  to  the  future  prospects  of  themselves  and  their 
dearest  kindred,  when  there  should  be  few  to  offer  the  sacrifice  of  the 
mass  for  the  benefit  of  departed  souls.  The  traveller  and  the  men¬ 
dicant,  too,  missed  the  ever  open  door  and  the  coarse  but  abundant 
fare,  which  smoothed  the  path  of  the  humble  wayfarer.  Discontent 
spread  widely,  and  was  soon  manifested  openly.  To  meet  this,  most 
of  the  lands  were  sold  at  a  very  moderate  price  to  the  neighboring 
gentry,  under  condition  of  exercising  free  hospitality,  to  supply  the 
wants  of  those  who  had  hitherto  been  dependent  on  conventual  charity.2 


1  Articles  devised  by  the  Kinges 
Highnes  Majestie,  aim.  1536  (Formu¬ 
laries  of  Faith,  Oxford,  1856  p.  xxxi.). 

2  Burnet  I.  193-4,  222-4; —  Pari. 
Hist.  I.  526-7.  To  our  modern  notions, 
there  is  something  inexpressibly  dis¬ 
gusting  in  the  openness  with  which 
bribes  were  tendered  to  Cromwell  by 
those  who  were  eager  to  obtain  grants 
of  abbey  lands  (Suppression  of  Monas¬ 
teries,  passim).  On  the  other  hand, 
the  abbots  and  abbesses  who  feared  for 
their  houses  had  as  little  scruple  in 
offering  him  large  sums  for  his  protec¬ 


tion.  Thus  the  good  Bishop  Latimer 
renders  himself  the  intermediary  (Dec. 
16th,  1536)  of  an  offer  from  the  Prior 
of  Great  Malvern  of  500  marks  to  the 
king  and  200  to  Cromwell  to  preserve 
that  foundation ;  while  the  Abbot  of 
Peterboro’  tendered  the  enormous  sum 
of  2500  marks  to  the  king  and  £300  to 
Cromwell  (Ibid.  150,  179).  The  liberal 
disposition  of  the  latter  seems  to  have 
made  an  impression,  for,  though  he 
could  not  save  his  abbey,  he  was  ap¬ 
pointed  the  first  Bishop  of  Peterboro’ 
— a  see  erected  upon  the  ruins  of  the 
house. 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  OF  GRACE. 


455 


The  plan  was  only  partially  successful,  and  soon  another  element 
of  trouble  made  itself  apparent.  Of  the  monks  whose  houses  w'ere 
suppressed,  those  who  desired  to  continue  a  monastic  life  were  trans¬ 
ferred  to  the  larger  foundations,  while  the  rest  took  “ capacities,”1 
under  promise  of  a  reasonable  allowance  for  their  journey  home. 
They  received  only  forty  shillings  and  a  gown,  and  with  this  slender 
provision  it  was  estimated  that  about  ten  thousand  were  turned  adrift 
upon  the  world,  in  which  their  previous  life  had  incapacitated  them 
from  earning  a  support.  The  result  is  visible  in  the  act  for  the  pun¬ 
ishment  of  “  sturdy  vagabonds  and  beggars,”  passed  by  Parliament 
in  this  same  year,  inflicting  a  graduated  scale  of  penalties,  of  which 
hanging  was  the  one  threatened  for  a  third  offence.2 

This  was  a  dangerous  addition  to  society  when  discontent  was 
smouldering  and  ready  to  burst  into  flame.  The  result  was  soon 
apparent.  After  harvest-time  great  disturbances  convulsed  the  king¬ 
dom.  A  rising,  reported  as  consisting  of  twenty  thousand  men,  in 
Lincolnshire,  was  put  down  by  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  with  a  heavy 
force  and  free  promises  of  pardon.  In  the  North  matters  were  even 
more  serious.  The  clergy  there  were  less  tractable  than  their  south¬ 
ern  brethren,  and  some  Injunctions  savoring  strongly  of  Protestant¬ 
ism  aroused  their  susceptibilities  afresh.  Unwilling  to  submit  wdthout 
a  struggle,  they  held  a  convocation,  in  wdiich  they  denied  the  royal 
supremacy  and  proclaimed  their  obedience  to  the  pope.  This  was 
rank  rebellion,  especially  as  Paul  III.,  on  the  30th  of  August,  1535, 
had  issued  his  Bull  of  excommunication  against  Henry,  and  self- 
preservation  therefore  demanded  the  immediate  suppression  of  the 
recalcitrants.  They  would  hardly,  indeed,  have  ventured  on  assum¬ 
ing  a  position  of  such  dangerous  opposition  without  the  assurance 
of  popular  support,  nor  were  their  expectations  or  labors  disappointed. 
The  “  Pilgrimage  of  Grace,”  according  to  report,  soon  numbered 
forty  thousand  men.  Although  Skipton  and  Scarboro’  bravely  re¬ 
sisted  a  desperate  seige,  the  success  of  the  insurgents  at  York,  Hull, 
and  Pomfret  Castle  was  encouraging,  and  risings  in  Lancashire,  Dur¬ 
ham,  and  Westmoreland  gave  to  the  insurrection  an  aspect  of  the 


1  “They  he  very  pore,  and  can  have 
lytyll  serves  withowtt  ther  capacytes. 
The  hischoyppys  and  curettes  be  very 
hard  to  them,  withowtt  they  have  ther 
capacytes.” — The  Bishop  of  Dover  to 
Cromwell,  March  10th,  1538  (Suppres¬ 
sion  of  Monasteries,  p.  193).  These 
“capacities”  empowered  them  to  per¬ 


form  the  functions  of  secular  priests. 
The  good  bishop  pleads  that  certain 
poor  monks  may  obtain  them  without 
paying  the  usual  fee. 

2  27  Henry  VIII.  c.  25,  renewed  by 
28  Hen.  VIII.  c.  6. — Parliament.  Hist. 
I.  574. 


456 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


most  menacing  character.  Good  fortune  and  skilful  strategy,  how¬ 
ever,  saved  the  Duke  of  Norfolk  and  his  little  army  from  defeat;  the 
winter  was  rapidly  approaching,  and  at  length  a  proclamation  of  gen¬ 
eral  amnesty,  issued  by  the  king  on  the  9th  of  December,  induced 
a  dispersion  of  the  rebels.  The  year  1537  saw  another  rising  in  the 
North,  but  this  time  it  only  numbered  eight  thousand  men.  Repulsed 
at  Carlisle,  and  cut  to  pieces  by  Norfolk,  the  insurgents  were  quickly 
put  down,  and  other  disturbances  of  minor  importance  were  even 
more  readily  suppressed.1 

Strengthened  by  these  triumphs  over  the  disaffected,  Henry  pro¬ 
ceeded,  in  1537,  to  make  the  acknowledgment  of  papal  authority  a 
crime  liable  to  the  penalties  of  a  prtemunire;2  and,  as  resistance  was 
no  longer  to  be  dreaded,  he  commenced  to  take  possession  of  some 
of  the  larger  houses.  These  did  not  come  within  the  scope  of  the 
act  of  Parliament,  and  therefore  were  made  the  subject  of  special 
transactions.  The  abbots  resigned,  either  from  having  been  impli¬ 
cated  in  the  late  insurrections,  or  feeling  that  their  evil  lives  would 
not  bear  investigation,  or  doubtless,  in  many  cases,  from  a  clear  per¬ 
ception  of  the  doom  impending  in  the  near  future,  which  rendered  it 
prudent  to  make  the  best  terms  possible  while  yet  there  was  time. 
Thus,  in  these  cases,  the  monks  were  generally  pensioned  with  eight 
marks  a  year,  while  some  of  the  abbots  secured  a  revenue  of  400  or 
500  marks.3  In  an  agreement  which  has  been  preserved,  the  monks 
were  to  receive  pensions  varying  from  53s.  4 d.  to  <£4  a  year,  accord¬ 
ing  to  their  age.4  In  some  cases,  indeed,  according  to  Bishop  Lati¬ 
mer,  in  a  sermon  preached  before  Edward  VI.,  the  royal  exchequer 
was  relieved  by  finding  preferment  for  most  unworthy  objects — 
“  however  bad  the  reports  of  them  were,  some  were  made  bishops 
and  others  put  into  good  dignities  in  the  church;  that  so  the  king 
might  save  their  pensions  that  otherwise  were  to  be  paid  them.”5 
An  effectual  means,  moreover,  of  inducing  voluntary  surrenders  was 
by  stopping  their  source  of  support,  and  thus  starving  them  out. 
Richard,  Bishop  of  Dover,  one  of  the  commissioners  in  Wales,  writes 
to  Cromwell,  May  23d,  1538:  “I  thinke  before  the  yere  be  owt 


1  Burnet  I.  227-34;  Collect.  160.— 
Wilkins  III.  784,  792,  812.— Rymer 
XIY.  549. 

2  28  Henry  VIII.  c.  10. — Pari.  Hist. 
I.  533. 

3  Burnet  I.  235-7.  These  pensions 

were  not  in  all  cases  secured  without 


difficulty,  even  after  promises  had  been 
made  and  agreements  entered  into 
(Suppression  of  Monasteries,  p.  126). 

4  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  p.  170. 
— Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  262. 

5  Strvpe,  Memorials  of  Cranmer, 
Book  i.  Chap.  ix. 


DESTBUCTION  OF  THE  MONASTIC  SYSTEM. 


457 


ther  schall  be  very  fewe  howsis  abill  to  lyve,  but  schall  be  glade  to 
giffe  up  their  howseis  and  provide  for  them  selvys  otherwise,  for  their 
thei  schall  have  no  living.”  In  anticipation  of  the  impending  doom, 
many  of  the  abbots  and  priors  had  sold  everything  that  was  salable, 
from  lands  and  leases  down  to  spits  and  kitchen  utensils,  leaving 
their  houses  completely  denuded.  The  letters  of  the  commissioners 
are  full  of  complaints  respecting  this  sharp  practice,  and  of  their 
efforts  to  trace  the  property.  Another  mode  of  compelling  sur¬ 
renders  was  by  threatening  the  strict  enforcement  of  the  rules  of  the 
order.  Thus,  in  the  official  report  of  the  surrender  of  the  Austin 
friars  of  Gloucester,  we  find  the  alternative  given  them,  when  “the 
seyd  freeres  seyed  ...  as  the  worlde  ys  nowe  they  war  not  ahull 
to  kepe  them  and  leffe  in  ther  howseys,  wherfore  voluntaryly  they 
gaffe  ther  howseys  into  the  vesytores  handes  to  the  kynges  use.  The 
vesytor  seyd  to  them,  ‘  thynke  nott,  nor  hereafter  reportt  nott,  that 
ye  be  suppresseyd,  for  I  have  noo  such  auctoryte  to  suppresse  yow, 
but  only  to  reforme  yow,  wherfor  yf  ye  woll  be  reformeyd,  accor- 
deyng  to  good  order,  ye  may  contynew  for  all  me.’  They  seyd  they 
war  nott  ahull  to  contynew,”  whereupon  they  were  ejected.1 

In  the  year  1538  the  work  proceeded  with  increased  rapidity,  no 
less  than  158  surrenders  of  the  larger  houses  being  enrolled.  Many 
of  the  abbots  were  attainted  of  treason  and  executed,  and  the  abbey 
lands  forfeited.  Means  not  of  the  nicest  kind  were  taken  to  increase 
the  disrepute  of  the  monastic  orders,  and  they  retaliated  in  the  same 
way.  Thus,  the  Abbot  of  Crossed-Friars,  in  London,  was  surprised 
in  the  day  time  with  a  woman  under  the  worst  possible  circumstances, 
giving  rise  to  a  lawsuit  more  curious  than  decent ; 2  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Abbess  of  Chepstow  accused  Dr.  London,  one  of  the  vis¬ 
itors,  of  corrupting  her  nuns.3  Public  opinion,  however,  did  not 


1  Suppression  of  Monast.  pp.  194, 
203. 

2  A  letter  from  John  Bartelot  to 

Cromwell  shows  that  the  abbot  pur¬ 
chased  secrecy  by  distributing  thirty 
pounds  to  those  who  detected  him,  and 
promising  them  thirty  more.  This 
latter  sum  was  subsequently  reduced  to 
six  pounds,  for  which  the  holy  man 
gave  his  note.  This  not  being  p|id  at 
maturity,  he  was  sued,  when  he  had 
the  audacity  to  complain  to  Cromwell, 
and  to  threaten  to  prosecute  the  in¬ 
truders  for  robbery  and  force  them  to 
return  the  money  paid.  Bartelot  relates 


his  share  in  the  somewhat  questionable 
transaction  with  great  naivete,  and 
applies  to  Cromwell  for  protection. — 
Suppression  of  Monasteries,  Letter  xxv. 

3  This  may  have  been  true,  for  Dr. 
London  was  one  of  the  miserable  tools 
who  are  the  fitting  representatives  of 
the  time.  His  desire  to  discover  the 
irregularities  of  the  monastic  orders  arose 
from  no  reverence  for  virtue,  for  he 
underwent  public  penance  at  Oxford 
for  adultery  with  a  mother  and  daughter 
(Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  376)  ;  and 
his  zeal  in  suppressing  the  monasteries 
was  complemented  with  equal  zeal  in 


458 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


move  fast  enough  for  the  rapacity  of  those  in  power,  and  strenuous 
exertions  were  made  to  stimulate  it.  All  the  foul  stories  that  could 
be  found  or  invented  respecting  the  abbeys  were  raked  together;  but 
these  proving  insufficient,  the  impostures  concerning  relics  and  images 
were  investigated  with  great  success,  and  many  singular  exposures 
were  made  which  gave  the  king  fresh  warrant  for  his  arbitrary  mea¬ 
sures,  and  placed  the  religious  houses  in  a  more  defenceless  position 
than  ever.1 

Despite  all  this,  in  the  session  of  1539  all  the  twenty-eight  par¬ 
liamentary  abbots  had  their  wTrits,  and  no  less  than  twenty  sat  in  the 
House  of  Lords.2  Yet  the  influence  of  the  court  and  the  progress 
of  public  opinion  were  shown  in  an  act  which  confirmed  the  sup¬ 
pressions  of  the  larger  houses  not  embraced  in  the  former  act,  as 
well  as  all  that  might  thereafter  be  suppressed,  forfeited,  or  resigned,3 
and  May  9th,  1540,  by  special  enactment,  the  ancient  order  of  the 
Knights  of  St.  John  was  broken  up,  pensions  being  granted  to  the 
grand  prior  and  some  of  the  principal  dignitaries.4  These  measures 
consummated  the  ruin  of  the  monastic  system  in  England.  Hence- 


persecuting  Protestants.  In  1543  he 
made  himself  conspicuous,  in  conjunc¬ 
tion  with  Gardiner,  by  having  heretics 
burned  under  the  provisions  of  the  Six 
Articles.  His  eagerness  in  this  good 
work  led  him  to  commit  perjury,  on 
conviction  of  which  he  was  pilloried  in 
Windsor,  Reading,  and  Newbury,  and 
thrust  into  the  Fleet,  where  he  died. 
— Strype,  Memorials  of  Cranmer,  Book 
I.  Chap.  26,  27. 

In  fact,  Henry’s  capricious  despotism 
rendered  it  almost  impossible  that  he 
could  he  served  by  men  of  self-respect 
and  honor. 

1  Burnet  I.  238-43.  —  See  also 
Froude’s  Hist.  Engl.  III.  285  et  seq. 
During  his  visitation  (Aug.  27th,  1538), 
the  Bishop  of  Dover  writes  to  Crom¬ 
well,  “I  have  Malkow’s  ere  that  Peter 
stroke  of,  as  yt  ys  wrytyn,  and  a  M.  as 
trewe  as  that  ”  (Suppression  of  Mon¬ 
asteries,  p.  212).  In  a  report  of  Dec. 
28th,  1538,  Dr.  London  observes,  with 
dry  humor,  “I  have  dyvers  other  pro- 
pre  thinges,  as  two  heddes  of  sejmt 
Ursula,  wich  bycause  ther  ys  no  maner 
of  sylver  abowt  them,  I  reserve  tyll  I 
have  another  hedd  of  herse,  wich  I 
schall  fynd  in  my  waye  within  theese 
xiiii.  days,  as  I  am  creadably  in¬ 
form  yd  ”  (Ibid.  p.  234).  Dr.  Leighton 
writes  in  the  same  spirit  to  Cromwell — 


“  Yee  shall  also  receive  a  Bag  of  Relicks 

wherein  ye  shall  see  Stranger  Things  as 

shall  appear  by  the  Scripture.  As  God’s 

Coat,  or  Ladie’s  Smock;  Part  of  God’s 

Supper,  In  ccena  Domini ;  Pars  petrae 

super  qua  natus  erat  J esus  in  Bethlehem. 

Besides  there  is  in  Bethlehem  plenty 

of  Stones  and  sometimes  Quarries,  and 

maketh  their  mangers  of  Stone.  The 

scripture  of  every  thing  shall  declare 

vou  all.  And  all  these  of  Mavden 
%/  %/ 

Bradley.  Where  is  a  holy  Father 
Prior ;  and  hath  but  six  Sons  and  one 
Daughter  married  yet  of  the  goods  of 
the  Monastery.  And  he  thanketh  God, 
he  never  meddled  with  married  women  ; 
but  all  with  Maidens,  the  fairest  could 
be  gotten.  And  always  married  them 
right  well.  The  Pope,  considering  his 
fragility,  gave  him  license  to  keep  a 

w - :  and  hath  good  writing,  sub 

Plumbo,  to  discharge  his  conscience  ” 
(Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  253). — 
Nicander  Nucius  (op.  cit.  pp.  51-62) 
relates  some  of  the  stories  current  at 
the  time  of  the  miracles  engineered  by 
the  monks  to  stave  off  their  impending 
doom. 

2  Pari.  Hist.  I.  535. 

3  31  Henry  VIII.  c.  13  (Pari.  Hist. 
I.  637). 

4  32  Hen.  VIII.  c.  24  (Ibid.  543-44). 


DESTRUCTION  OF  THE  MONASTIC  SYSTEM.  459 


forth  it  was  altogether  at  the  king’s  mercy,  and  his  character  was 
not  one  to  temper  power  with  moderation.  In  1539  there  are  upon 
record  fifty-seven  surrenders  of  the  great  abbeys,1  and  a  large  num¬ 
ber  in  1540,  the  good  house  of  Godstow  being  the  last  of  the  great 
monasteries  to  fall.  Of  the  old  monastic  system  this  left  only  the 
chantries,  free  chapels,  collegiate  churches,  hospitals,  &c.,  which  were 
gradually  absorbed  during  the  succeeding  years ; 2  until  the  necessities 
of  the  king  prompted  a  sweeping  measure  for  their  destruction.  Ac¬ 
cordingly  in  1545  a  bill  was  brought  in  placing  them  all  at  his  dis¬ 
position.  There  were  some  indications  of  opposition,  but  the  king 
pleaded  the  expenditures  of  the  French  and  Scottish  wars,  and  sol¬ 
emnly  promised  his  Parliament  “that  all  should  be  done  for  the 
glory  of  God  and  common  profit  of  the  realm,”  whereupon  it  was 
passed.3  It  is  computed  that  the  number  of  monasteries  suppressed 
by  these  various  measures  was  645;  of  colleges,  90;  of  chantries 
and  free  chapels,  2374;  and  of  hospitals,  110.4 

A  vast  amount  of  property  thus  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  court. 
The  clear  yearly  rental  of  the  suppressed  houses  alone  was  rated  at 
<£131,607  6s.  4 d. — an  immense  sum  in  those  days;  but  Burnet 
states  that  in  reality  it  was  almost  tenfold  the  amount.5  Small  as 
may  have  been  the  good  effected  by  these  enormous  possessions  in 
the  hands  of  the  monks,  it  was  even  more  worthless  under  the  man¬ 
agement  of  its  new  masters.  Henry  admitted  the  heavy  responsi¬ 
bility  which  he  assumed  in  thus  seizing  the  wealth  which  had  been 
dedicated  to  pious  uses,  and  he  entertained  magnificent  schemes  for 
devoting  it  to  the  public  benefit,  but  his  own  necessities  and  the 
grasping  avarice  of  needy  courtiers  wrought  out  a  result  ridiculously 
mean.  Thus  he  designed  to  set  aside  a  rental  of  £18,000  for  the 
support  of  eighteen  “  Byshopprychys  to  be  new  made.”6  For  this 
purpose  he  obtained  full  power  from  Parliament  in  1539, 7  and  in 
1540  he  established  one  on  the  remains  of  the  Abbey  of  Westminster. 


1  Burnet  I.  262-3. 

2  Rymer  XI Y.,  XY. 

3  37  Hen.  YIII.  c.  4  (Pari.  Hist.  I. 
561). 

4  Pari.  Hist.  I.  537.  Such  hospi¬ 
tals,  chantries,  &c.,  as  were  spared  by 
Henry  VIII.  were  speedily  swept 
away,  as  soon  as  Edward  VI.  suc¬ 
ceeded  to  the  throne,  by  the  act  1  Edw. 
VI.  c.  14  (Pari.  Hist.  I.  583). 

5  This  may  readily  be  considered  no 


exaggeration.  A  letter  from  John 
Freeman  to  Cromwell  values  at  £80,000 
the  lead  alone  stripped  from  the  dis¬ 
mantled  houses  (Suppression  of  Monas¬ 
teries,  p.  290). 

6  Such  is  the  substance  of  a  memo¬ 
randum  in  Henry’s  own  hand-writing 
(Suppression  of  Monasteries,  No.  131, 
p.  263). 

7  31  Hen.  YIII.  c.  9  (Pari.  Hist.  I. 
540). 


460 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


Those  of  Chester,  Gloucester,  and  Peterboro’  were  established  in 
1541,  and  in  1543  those  of  Oxford  and  Bristol,1  and  one  of  them, 
that  of  Westminster,  was  suppressed  in  1550,  leaving  only  five  as 
the  result.  The  people  were  quieted  by  assurances  that  taxes  would 
be  abrogated  forever  and  the  kingdom  kept  in  a  most  efficient  state 
of  defence ;  but  subsidies  and  benevolences  were  immediately  exacted 
with  more  frequency  and  energy  than  ever.2  Splendid  foundations 
were  promised  for  institutions  of  learning,  but  little  was  given;  a 
moderate  sum  was  expended  in  improving  the  sea-ports,  while  broad 
manors  and  rich  farms  were  granted  to  favorites  at  almost  nominal 
prices;  and  the  ill-gotten  wealth  abstracted  from  the  church  disap¬ 
peared  without  leaving  traces  except  in  the  sudden  and  overgrown 
fortunes  of  those  gentlemen  who  were  fortunate  or  prompt  enough 
to  make  use  of  the  golden  opportunity,  and  who  to  obtain  them  had 
no  scruple  in  openly  tendering  bribes  and  shares  in  the  spoil  to 
Cromwell,  the  omnipotent  favorite  of  the  king.3  The  complaints  of 
the  people,  who  found  their  new  masters  harder  than  the  old,  may 
be  estimated  from  some  specimens  printed  by  Strype.4 

If  it  be  asked  what  became  of  the  “holy  idle  thieves”  and  “ sturdy 
loobies  ”  whom  the  Beggars’  Petition  so  earnestly  desired  to  be  thrown 
upon  the  world,  the  answer  may  be  found  in  the  legislation  of  Edward 
VI.  A  poor-law,  the  commencement  of  a  series  which  to  this  day 
has  pressed  upon  England  with  ever-increasing  weight,  was  enacted 
in  1552.5  This  tells  its  own  story,  but  even  more  suggestive  was 
another  bill  for  the  suppression  of  vagabondage,  the  provisions  of 
which  mark  not  only  the  inhumanity  of  the  age,  but  the  magnitude 
of  the  evil  caused  by  the  violent  acts  of  Henry.  Every  able-bodied 
man  loitering  in  any  place  for  three  days  without  working  or  offering 
to  work  was  held  to  be  a  vagabond.  He  was  thereupon  to  be  branded 
on  the  breast  with  a  letter  Y,  and  adjudged  as  a  slave  for  two  years 
to  any  one  who  might  bring  him  for  that  purpose  before  a  justice 
of  the  peace.6  Such  was  the  ignominious  end  of  the  powerful  and 
wealthy  monastic  orders  of  England. 


1  Burnet  I.  300. 

2  Strype,  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  345. 

3  See  letters  of  the  Lord  Chancellor 
Audley  and  the  learned  Sir  Thomas 
Elyot  to  Cromwell. — Strype,  Eccles. 
Memor.  I.  2G3-5. 

4  Op.  cit.  I.  392-403  ;  II.  258-G3. 

5  5-G  Edw.  YI.  c.  2  (Pari.  Hist.  I. 

596). 


6  1  Edw.  YI.  c.  3. — Pari.  Hist.  I.  583. 
— Burnet  II.  45.  In  1538  the  Bishop 
of  Dover  interceded  with  Cromwell  for 
licenses  to  enable  some  ejected  friars  to 
abandon  their  monastic  gowns,  “For 
off  trewthe  ther  harttes  be  clene  from 
the  relvgyon  the  more  parte,  so  they 
myght  change  ther  cotes,  the  whyche 
they  be  not  abull  to  paye  for,  for  they 
have  no  thenge  ”  (Suppression  of  Mon¬ 
asteries,  p.  197). 


SACERDOTAL  CELIBACY  RETAINED. 


461 


The  monastic  establishments  of  Ireland  shared  the  same  fate. 
Rymer1  gives  the  text  of  a  commission  for  the  suppression  of  a  nun¬ 
nery  of  the  diocese  of  Dublin,  in  1585.  The  insubordination  of  the 
island,  however,  rendered  it  difficult  to  carry  out  the  measure  every¬ 
where,  and  finally,  in  1541,  it  was  accomplished  by  virtually  granting 
their  lands  to  the  native  chieftains.  These  were  good  Catholics,  but 
they  could  not  resist  the  temptation.  They  joined  eagerly  in  grasp¬ 
ing  the  spoil,  and  the  desirable  political  object  was  effected  of  detach¬ 
ing  them,  for  the  time,  from  the  foreign  alliances  with  the  Catholic 
powers  which  threatened  serious  evils.2 

It  is  a  striking  proof  of  Henry’s  strength  of  will  and  intense  in¬ 
dividuality  of  character,  that,  in  thus  tearing  up  by  the  roots  the 
whole  system  of  monachism,  he  did  not  yield  one  jot  to  the  powerful 
section  of  his  supporters  who  had  pledged  themselves  to  the  logical 
sequence  of  his  acts,  the  abrogation  of  sacerdotal  celibacy  in  general. 
While  every  reason  of  policy  and  statesmanship  urged  him  to  grant 
the  privilege  of  marriage  to  the  secular  clergy,  whom  he  forced  to 
transfer  to  him  the  allegiance  formerly  rendered  to  Rome ;  while  his 
chief  religious  advisers  at  home  and  his  Protestant  allies  abroad  used 
every  endeavor  to  wring  from  him  this  concession,  he  steadily  and 
persistently  refused  it  to  the  end,  and  we  can  only  guess  whether  his 
firmness  arose  from  conscientious  conviction  or  from  the  pride  of  a 
controversialist. 

Notwithstanding  his  immovable  resolution  on  this  point,  his  power 
seemed  ineffectual  to  stay  the  progress  of  the  new  ideas.  An  assem¬ 
bly  held  by  his  order  in  May,  1530,  to  condemn  the  heretical  doc¬ 
trines  disseminated  in  certain  books,  shows  how  openly  the  advocates 
of  clerical  marriage  had  promulgated  their  views  while  yet  Wolsey 
was  prime  minister  and  Henry  gloried  in  the  title  of  Defender  of  the 
Faith.  Numerous  books  were  denounced  in  which  celibacy  was  ridi¬ 
culed,  its  sanctity  disproved,  and  its  evil  influences  commented  upon 
in  the  most  irreverent  manner.3 * * *  These  doctrines  were  sometimes 


1  Fcedera,  T.  XIY.  p.  551. 

2  Froude,  Hist.  Engl.  IY.  543. 

3  Thus  “  An  Exposition  into  the 

sevenith  Chapitre  of  the  firste  Epistle 

to  the  Corinthians”  seems  to  have  been 

almost  entirely  devoted  to  an  argument 
against  celibacy,  adducing  all  manner 
of  reasons  derived  from  nature,  morality, 

necessity,  and  Scripture,  and  describing 


forcibly  the  evils  arising  from  the  rule. 
The  author  does  not  hesitate  to  declare 
that  “  Matrimonj7  is  as  golde,  the  spirit- 
uall  estates  as  dung,”  and  the  tenor  of 
his  writings  may  be  understood  from 
his  triumphant  exclamation,  after  in¬ 
sisting  that  all  the  Apostles  and  their 
immediate  successors  were  married — 
“  Seeing  that  ye  chose  not  married  men 
to  bishoppes,  other  Criste  must  be  a 


462 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


carried  into  practice,  and  the  orthodox  clergy  had  little  ceremony  in 
visiting  them  with  the  sharpest  penalties  of  the  canons.  It  was 
about  this  time  that  Stokesley,  Bishop  of  London,  condemned  to 
imprisonment  for  life  Thomas  Patmore,  the  incumbent  of  Hadham 
in  Hertfordshire,  for  encouraging  his  curate  to  marry  and  permitting 
him  subsequently  to  officiate ;  and  the  unfortunate  man  actually  lay 
for  three  years  in  gaol,  until  released  by  the  intercession  of  Cranmer.1 
This  severity  offers  a  significant  contrast  to  the  lenity  which  punished 
priestly  incontinence  with  trifling  fines  and  penalties,  or  sold  licenses 
to  sin  almost  openly.2 

If  the  reforming  polemics  were  thus  bold  while  Henry  was  yet 
orthodox,  it  may  readily  be  imagined  how  keenly  they  watched  the 
progress  of  his  quarrel  with  the  pope,  and  how  loud  became  their 
utterances  as  he  gradually  threwT  off  his  allegiance  to  Rome  and  per¬ 
secuted  all  who  hesitated  to  follow  in  his  footsteps.  He  soon  showed, 
however,  that  he  allowed  none  to  precede  him,  and  that  all  consci¬ 
ences  were  to  be  measured  by  the  royal  ell-wand.  Thus  his  proceed¬ 
ings  against  the  Carthusians  and  Franciscans  in  1534  were  varied 
by  a  proclamation  directed  against  seditious  books  and  priestly  mar¬ 
riages.  As  wTe  have  seen,  some  unions  had  taken  place,  and  all  who 
had  committed  the  indiscretion  were  deprived  of  their  functions  and 
reduced  to  the  laity,  though  the  marriages  seem  to  have  been  recog¬ 
nized  as  valid.  Future  transgressions,  moreover,  were  threatened 
with  the  royal  indignation  and  further  punishment — words  of  serious 
import  at  such  a  time  and  under  such  a  monarch.3 


foole  or  unrighteous  which  so  did  chose, 
or  you  anticristis  and  deceyvers.” 

The  “  Sum  of  Scripture  ”  was  more 
moderate  in  its  expressions.  “  Yf  a 
man  vowe  to  lyve  chaste  and  in  po- 
vertie  in  a  monasterie,  than  yf  he  per- 
ceyve  that  in  the  monastery  he  lyveth 
woorse  than  he  did  before,  as  in  forni¬ 
cation  and  theft,  then  he  may  leve  the 
cloyster  and  breke  his  vowe  without 
synne.” 

Tyndale  in  “  The  Obedience  of  a 
Cristen  Man  ”  is  most  uncompromising. 
“  Oportet  presbyterem  ducere  uxorem 
duas  ob  causas.”  .  .  .  “  If  thou  bind 
thy  self  to  chastitie  to  obtcyn  that  which 
Criste  purchesed  for  the,  surely  soo  art 
thow  an  infidele.” 

The  “  Revelation  of  Anticriste”  car¬ 
ries  the  war  into  the  enemy’s  terri¬ 
tory  in  a  fashion  somewhat  savage. 
“  Keping  of  virginitie  and  chastite  of 


religion  is  a  devellishe  thinge”  (Wil¬ 
kins  III.  728-34). 

1  Strype,  Memorials  of  Cranmer, 
Book  hi.  Chapter  34. 

2  For  instances  of  these  practices,  see 
Froude’s  England,  Ch.  ill. 

3  Wilkins  III.  778. — Strype,  in  his 
“  Memorials  of  Cranmer,”  Bk.  i.  Chap. 
18,  gives  this  proclamation  as  dated 
Nov.  16,  in  the  30th  year  of  nenry 
VIII.  which  would  place  it  in  1538, 
and  Bishop  Wilkins  also  prints  (III. 
696)  from  Harmer’s  “Specimen  of 
Errors  ”  the  same  with  unimportant 
variations,  as  “given  this  16tli  day  of 
November,  in  the  13th  year  of  our 
reign,”  which  would  place  it  in  1521. 
It  is  impossible,  however,  at  a  time  when 
even  the  Lutherans  of  Saxony  bad 
scarcely  ventured  on  the  innovation, 


PROGRESS  OF  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


463 


In  spite  of  all  this,  the  chief  advisers  of  Henry  did  not  scruple  to 
connive  at  infractions  of  the  proclamation.  Both  Cranmer  and 
Cromwell  favored  the  Reformation ;  the  former  was  himself  secretly 
married,  and  even  ventured  to  urge  the  king  to  reconsider  his  views 
on  priestly  celibacy  ;l  while  the  latter,  though,  as  a  layman,  without 
any  such  personal  motive,  was  disposed  to  relax  the  strictness  of  the 
rule  of  celibacy.  During  the  visitation  of  the  monasteries,  for  in¬ 
stance,  the  Abbot  of  Walden  had  little  hesitation  in  confessing  to 
Ap  Rice,  the  visitor,  that  he  was  secretly  married,  and  asked  to  be 
secured  from  molestation.  The  confidence  thus  manifested  in  the 
friendly  disposition  of  the  vicar-general  was  satisfactorily  responded 
to.  Cromwell  replied,  merely  warning  him  to  Uuse  his  remedy” 
without,  if  possible,  causing  scandal.2  A  singular  petition,  addressed 
to  him  in  1536  by  the  secular  clergy  of  the  diocese  of  Bangor,  illus¬ 
trates  forcibly  both  the  confidence  felt  in  his  intentions,  and  the 
necessity  of  the  Abbot  of  Walden’s  “  remedy  ”  in  the  fearful  state  of 
immorality  which  prevailed.  There  had  been  a  visitation  in  which 
the  petitioners  admit  that  many  of  them  had  been  found  in  fault, 
and  as  their  women  had  been  consequently  taken  away,  they  pray 
the  vicar-general  to  devise  some  means  by  which  their  consorts  may 
be  restored.  They  do  not  venture  to  ask  directly  for  marriage,  but 
decency  forbids  the  supposition  that  they  could  openly  request  Crom¬ 
well  to  authorize  a  system  of  concubinage.  Nothing  can  be  more 


that  in  England  priestly  marriage  could 
already  have  become  as  common  as  the 
proclamation  shows  it  to  be.  The  bull 
of  Leo  X.,  thanking  Henry  for  his  refu¬ 
tation  of  Luther,  was  dated  Nov.  4th, 
1521,  and  we  may  he  sure  that  the 
king’s  zeal  for  the  faith  would  at  such 
a  moment  have  prompted  him  to  much 
more  stringent  measures  of  repression, 
if  he  had  ventured,  at  that  epoch,  to 
invade  the  sacred  precincts  of  ecclesi¬ 
astical  jurisdiction — a  thing  he  would 
have  been  by  no  means  likely  to  do. 
The  date  of  1521  is  therefore  evidently 
an  error. 

Eor  the  same  reasons  I  have  been 
forced  to  reject  a  discussion  in  convoca¬ 
tion  of  the  same  year  (Wilkins  III. 
697),  in  which  the  question  of  sacerdo¬ 
tal  marriage  was  decided  triumphantly 
in  the  affirmative.  The  proceedings 
are  evidently  those  of  Dec.  1547,  in  the 
first  year  of  Edward  YI. 

1  Burnet’s  Collections  I.  319. 


2  MS.  State  Paper  Office  (Fronde, 
III.  65).  Ap  Rice’s  report  to  Crom¬ 
well  is  sufficiently  suggestive  as  to  the 
interior  life  of  the  monastic  orders  to 
deserve  transcription.  “  As  we  were 
of  late  at  Walden,  the  abbot  there 
being  a  man  of  good  learning  and  right 
sincere  judgment,  as  I  examined  him 
alone,  showed  me  secretly,  upon  stipu¬ 
lation  of  silence,  but  only  unto  you  as 
our  judge,  that  he  had  contracted 
matrimony  with  a  certain  woman  se¬ 
cretly,  having  present  thereat  but  one 
trusty  witness;  because  he,  not  being 
able,  as  he  said,  to  contain,  though  he 
could  not  be  suffered  by  the  laws  of 
man,  saw  he  might  do  it  lawfully  by 
the  laws  of  God ;  and  for  the  avoiding 
of  more  inconvenience,  which  before 
he  was  provoked  unto,  he  did  thus, 
having  confidence  in  you  that  this  act 
should  not  be  anything  prejudicial  unto 
him.” 


464 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHUKCH. 


humiliating  than  their  confession  of  the  relations  existing  between 
themselves,  as  ministers  of  Christ,  and  the  flocks  entrusted  to  their 
spiritual  care.  After  pleading  that  without  women  they  cannot  keep 
house  and  exercise  hospitality,  they  add:  “We  ourselves  shall  be 
driven  to  seek  our  living  at  ale-houses  and  taverns,  for  mansions 
upon  the  benefices  and  vicarages  we  have  none.  And  as  for  gentle¬ 
men  and  substantial  honest  men,  for  fear  of  inconvenience,  knowing 
our  frailty  and  accustomed  liberty,  they  will  in  nowise  board  us  in 
their  houses  A1 

The  tendencies  thus  exhibited  by  the  king’s  advisers  called  forth 
the  remonstrances  of  the  conservatives.  In  June,  1536,  the  lower 
house  of  convocation  presented  a  memorial  inveighing  strongly  against 
the  progress  of  heresy,  and  among  the  obnoxious  opinions  condemned 
was  “  That  it  is  preached  and  taught  that  all  things  awght  to  be  in 
comen  and  that  Priests  shuld  have  wifles,”  and  they  added  that 
books  containing  heretical  opinions  were  printed  “cum  privilegio,” 
were  openly  sold  among  the  people,  and  were  not  condemned  by 
those  in  authority.2  Possibly  it  was  in  consequence  of  this  that  in 
the  following  November  Plenry  issued  a  circular  letter  to  his  bishops 
in  which  he  commanded  them — “Whereas  we  be  advertised  that  di¬ 
vers  Priests  have  presumed  to  marry  themselves  contrary  to  the 
custom  of  our  Church  of  England,  Our  Pleasure  is,  Ye  shall  make 
secret  enquiry  within  your  Diocess,  whether  there  be  any  such  resi- 
ant  within  the  same  or  not ' ' — and  any  such  offenders  who  had  pre¬ 
sumed  to  continue  the  performance  of  their  sacred  functions  were 
ordered  to  be  reported  to  him  or  to  be  arrested  and  sent  to  London.3 
Curiously  enough,  there  is  no  reference  to  the  subject  in  the  “Articles 
devised  by  the  Kinges  Ilighnes  Majestieto  stablyshe  Christen  Quiet- 
nes  and  Unitie  amonge  us,”  issued  by  Henry  in  this  year.4 

Notwithstanding  the  ominous  threat  in  the  letter  to  the  Bishops 


1  MS.  State  Paper  Office  (Froude, 
III.  372).  It  is  not  to  be  assumed, 
however,  that  the  clergy  were  worse 
than  the  laity.  During  the  visitation 
of  the  monasteries,  Thomas  Leigh,  one 
of  the  visitors,  says,  in  writing  to  Crom¬ 
well,  Aug.  22,  1536,  concerning  the  re¬ 
gion  between  Coventry  and  Chester 
“  For  certain  of  the  knights  and  gen¬ 
tlemen,  and  most  commonly  all,  liveth 
so  incontinently,  having  their  concu¬ 
bines  openly  in  their  houses,  with  five 
or  six  of  their  children,  and  putting 
from  them  their  wives,  that  all  the 


country  therewith  be  not  a  little  of¬ 
fended,  and  taketh  evil  example  of 
them”  (Miscellaneous  State  Papers, 
London,  1778,  I.  21).  It  perhaps 
would  not  be  easy  to  determine  the 
exact  responsibility  of  the  clergy  for 
this  immorality  of  their  flocks. 

2  Strvpe,  Eccles.  Memorials,  Yol.  I. 
Append,  p.  176. 

3  Burnet’s  Collect.  I.  362. 

4  Formularies  of  Faith,  Oxford,  1856. 
—Wilkins  III.  826. 


UNCERTAINTY  AS  TO  MARRIAGE. 


465 


there  appears,  about  this  period,  to  have  been  great  uncertainty  in 
the  public  mind  respecting  the  state  of  the  law  and  the  king’s  inten¬ 
tions.  Two  letters  happen  to  have  been  preserved,  written  within  a 
few  days  of  each  other,  in  June,  1537,  to  Cromwell,  which  reveal 
the  condition  of  opinion  at  the  time.  One  of  these  complains  that 
the  vicar  of  Mendelsham,  in  Suffolk,  has  brought  home  a  wife  and 
children,  whom  he  claims  to  be  lawfully  his  own,  and  that  it  is  per¬ 
mitted  by  the  king.  Although  “thys  acte  by  hym  done  is  in  thys 
countre  a  monstre,  and  many  do  growdge  at  it,”  yet,  not  knowing 
the  king’s  pleasure,  no  proceedings  can  be  had,  and  appeal  is  there¬ 
fore  made  for  authority  to  prosecute,  lest  “hys  ensample  wnponnyched 
shall  be  occasion  for  other  carnall  evyll  dysposed  prestes  to  do  in 
lyke  manner.”  The  other  letter  is  from  an  unfortunate  priest  who 
had  recently  married,  supposing  it  to  be  lawful.  The  “noyse  of  the 
peopull,”  however,  had  just  informed  him  that  a  royal  order  had 
commanded  the  separation  of  such  unions,  and  he  had  at  once  sent 
his  wife  to  her  friends,  threescore  miles  away.  He  therefore  hastens 
to  make  his  peace,  protesting  that  he  had  sinned  through  ignorance, 
though  he  makes  bold  to  argue  that  “yf  the  kyngys  grace  could  have 
founde  yt  laufull  that  prestys  mught  have  byn  maryd,  they  wold 
have  byn  to  the  crowne  dubbyll  and  dubbyll  faythefull ;  furste  in 
love,  secondly  for  fere  that  the  byschoppe  of  Rome  schuld  sette  yn 
hys  powre  unto  ther  desolacyon.”1 

It  is  evident  from  these  letters  that  there  was  still  a  genuine  pop¬ 
ular  antipathy  to  clerical  marriage,  and  yet  that  the  royal  supremacy 
was  so  firmly  established  by  Henry’s  ruthless  persecutions  that  this 
antipathy  w*as  held  subject  to  the  pleasure  of  the  court,  and  could  at 
any  moment  have  been  dissipated  by  proclamation.  In  fact,  the  only 
wonder  is  that  any  convictions  remained  in  the  minds  of  those  who 
had  seen  the  objects  of  their  profoundest  veneration  made  the  sport 
of  avarice  and  derision.  Stately  churches  torn  to  pieces,  the  stone 
sold  to  sacrilegious  builders,  the  lead  put  up  at  auction  to  the  highest 
bidder,  the  consecrated  bells  cast  into  cannon,  the  sacred  vessels 
melted  down,  the  holy  relics  snatched  from  the  shrines  and  treated 
as  old  bones  and  offal,  the  venerated  images  burned  at  Smithfield — 
all  this  could  have  left  little  sentiment  of  respect  for  worn-out  religi¬ 
ous  observances  in  those  who  watched  and  saw  the  sacrilege  remain 
unpunished. 


1  Suppression  of  Monasteries,  pp.  1C0-1. 

30 


466 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


Notwithstanding  the  reforming  influences  with  which  he  was  sur¬ 
rounded,  Henry  sternly  adhered  to  the  position  which  he  had  assumed.1 
When,  in  1538,  the  princes  of  the  Schmalkaldic  League  offered  to 
place  him  at  its  head,  and  even  to  alter,  if  possible,  the  Augsburg 
Confession  so  as  to  make  it  a  common  basis  of  union  for  all  the  ele¬ 
ments  of  opposition  to  Rome,  Henry  was  well  inclined  to  obtain  the 
political  advantages  of  the  position  tendered  him,  but  hesitated  to 
accept  it  until  all  doctrinal  questions  should  be  settled.  The  three 
points  on  which  the  Germans  insisted  were  the  communion  in  both 
elements,  the  worship  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  the  marriage  of  the 
clergy.  In  the  Convocation  of  that  year  a  series  of  questions  was 
submitted  for  decision  embracing  the  contested  points,  and  the  clergy 
decided  in  favor  of  celibacy,  private  masses,  and  communion  in  one 
element.2  Thus  sustained,  Henry  was  firm,  and  the  ambassadors  of 
the  League  spent  two  months  in  conferences  with  the  English  bishops 
and  doctors  without  result.  On  their  departure  (August  5th,  1538), 
they  addressed  him  a  letter  arguing  the  subjects  in  debate — the 
refusal  of  the  cup,  private  masses,  and  sacerdotal  celibacy — to  which 
Henry  replied  at  some  length,  defending  his  position  on  these  topics 
with  no  little  skill  and  dexterity,  and  refusing  his  assent  finally.3 
The  reformers,  however,  did  not  yet  despair,  and  the  royal  preachers 
even  ventured  occasionally  to  debate  the  propriety  of  clerical  mar¬ 
riage  freely  before  him  in  their  sermons,  but  in  vain.4  An  epistle 
which  Melanchthon  addressed  him  in  April,  1539,  arguing  the  same 
questions  again,  had  no  better  effect.5 

In  the  spring  of  1539  Henry  renewed  negotiations  with  the  Ger¬ 
man  princes,  and  his  envoys  in  soliciting  another  visit  from  deputies 
of  the  League  held  out  some  vague  promises  of  his  yielding  on  the 
point  of  celibacy.  The  Germans  in  turn,  to  showT  their  earnest  desire 
for  union  with  England,  submitted  a  series  of  propositions,  in  which 
they  suggested  that  the  marriage  of  priests  might  be  left  to  the  dis¬ 
cretion  of  the  pope,  and  that  if  it  were  to  be  prohibited  only  persons 


1  He  made  one  exception.  Nuns 
professed  before  the  age  of  21  were  at 
liberty  to  marry  after  the  dissolution  of 
their  houses,  whereat,  according  to  Dr. 
London,  they  “be  wonderful!  gladde 
.  .  .  and  do  pray  right  hartely  for  the 
kinges majestic”  (Suppression of  Mon¬ 
asteries,  p.  214). 

2  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  320. 


3  Burnet  I.  254-55;  Collect.  332, 
347. 

4  “  Nothing  has  yet  been  settled  con¬ 
cerning  the  marriage  of  the  clergy,  al¬ 
though  some  persons  have  very  freely 
preached  before  the  king  upon  the  sub¬ 
ject.” — John  Butler  to  Conrad  Pellicnn 
(Froude  III.  381). 

5  Burnet,  Collect.  I.  329. 


THE  SIX  ARTICLES. 


467 


advanced  in  life  should  be  ordained.1  Both  parties,  however,  were 
too  firmly  set  in  their  opinions  for  accord  to  be  possible.  Notwith¬ 
standing  any  seeming  hesitation  caused  by  the  policy  of  the  moment, 
Henry’s  mind  was  fully  made  up,  and  the  consequences  of  endeavor¬ 
ing  to  persuade  him  against  his  prejudices  soon  became  apparent. 
Even  while  the  negotiations  were  in  progress  he  had  issued  a  series 
of  injunctions  degrading  from  the  priesthood  all  married  clergy,  and 
threatening  with  imprisonment  and  his  displeasure  all  who  should 
thereafter  marry.2  Argumentation  confirmed  his  opinions,  and  he 
proceeded  to  enforce  them  on  his  subjects  in  his  own  savage  manner, 
“  for  though  on  all  other  points  he  had  set  up  the  doctrines  of  the 
Augsburg  Confession,”  yet  on  these  he  had  committed  himself  as  a 
controversialist,  and  the  worst  passions  of  polemical  authorship — 
the  true  “  odium  theologicum” — acting  through  his  irresponsible 
despotism,  rendered  him  the  cruellest  of  persecutors.  But  a  few 
weeks  after  receiving  the  letter  of  Melanchthon,  he  answered  it  in 
cruel  fashion. 

In  May  a  new  parliament  met,  chosen  under  great  excitement,  for 
the  people  were  inflamed  on  the  subject  of  religion,  and  animosities 
ran  high.  The  principal  object  of  the  session  was  known  to  be  a 
settlement  of  the  national  church,  and  as  the  reformers  were  in  a 
minority  against  the  court,  the  temper  of  the  Houses  was  not  likely 
to  be  encouraging  for  them.3  On  the  5th  of  May,  a  week  after  its 
assembling,  a  committee  was  appointed,  at  the  king’s  request,  to  take 
into  consideration  the  differences  of  religious  opinion.  On  the  16th, 
the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who  was  not  a  member  of  the  committee, 
reported  that  no  agreement  could  be  arrived  at,  and  he  therefore 
laid  before  the  House  of  Lords,  for  full  discussion,  articles  em¬ 
bracing — 1st.  Transsubstantiation;  2d.  Communion  in  both  kinds; 
3d.  Vows  of  Chastity;  4th.  Private  Masses;  5th.  Sacerdotal  Mar¬ 
riages;  and  6th.  Auricular  Confession.  Cranmer  opposed  them 
stoutly,  arguing  against  them  for  three  days,  and  especially  endeavor¬ 
ing  to  controvert  the  third  and  fifth,  which  enjoined  celibacy,  but  his 
efforts  and  those  of  his  friends  were  vain,  when  pitted  against  the 
known  wishes  of  the  king,  who  himself  took  an  active  part  in  the 


1  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  339, 
343. 

2  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  I.  344. — 
Wilkins  III.  847. 

3  Yet  the  moderate  party  ventured  to 
submit  to  parliament  “  A  Device  for 


extirpating  Heresies  among  the  People,” 
among  the  suggestions  of  which  was  a 
bill  for  abolishing  ecclesiastical  celibacy, 
legalizing  all  existing  marriages,  and 
permitting  the  clergy  in  general  “  to 
have  wives  and  work  for  their  living” 
— Rolls  House  MS.  (Eroude  III.  381). 


468 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


debate,  and  argued  in  favor  of  the  articles  with  much  vigor.  Under 
such  circumstances,  the  adoption  of  the  Six  Articles  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  On  the  30th  of  May  the  chancellor  reported  that  the 
House  had  agreed  upon  them,  and  that  it  was  the  king’s  pleasure 
“that  some  penal  statute  should  be  enacted  to  compel  all  his  subjects 
who  were  in  any  way  dissenters  or  contradicters  of  these  articles  to 
obey  them.”  The  framing  of  such  a  bill  was  intrusted  to  two  com¬ 
mittees,  one  under  the  lead  of  Cranmer,  the  other  under  that  of  the 
Archbishop  of  York,  and  they  were  instructed  to  lay  their  respective 
plans  before  the  king  within  forty-eight  hours.  Of  course  the  report 
of  the  Archbishop  of  York  was  adopted.  Introduced  on  the  Tth  of 
June,  Cranmer  again  resisted  it  gallantly,  but  it  passed  both  Houses 
by  the  14th,  and  received  the  royal  assent  on  the  28th.  It  was 
entitled  “An  Act  for  abolishing  Diversity  of  Opinions  in  certain 
Articles  concerning  Christian  Religion,”  and  it  stands  as  a  monu¬ 
ment  of  the  cruel  legislation  of  a  barbarous  age.  The  Third  Article 
was  “that  Priests  after  the  order  of  Priesthood  might  not  marry  by 
the  Law  of  God;”  the  Fourth,  “that  Yows  of  Chastity  ought  to  be 
observed  by  the  Law  of  God,”  and  those  who  obstinately  preached 
or  disputed  against  them  were  adjudged  felons,  to  suffer  death  without 
benefit  of  clergy.  Any  opposition,  either  in  word  or  writing,  sub¬ 
jected  the  offender  to  imprisonment  during  the  king’s  pleasure,  and 
a  repetition  of  the  offence  constituted  a  felony,  to  be  expiated  with 
the  life  of  the  culprit.  Priestly  marriages  were  declared  void,  and 
a  priest  persisting  in  living  with  his  wife  was  to  be  executed  as  a 
felon.  Concubinage  was  punishable  with  deprivation  of  benefice  and 
property,  and  imprisonment,  for  a  first  offence;  a  second  lapse  was 
visited  with  a  felon’s  death,  while  in  all  cases  the  wife  or  concubine 
shared  the  fate  of  her  partner  in  guilt.  Quarterly  sessions  were  pro¬ 
vided,  to  be  held  by  the  bishops  and  other  commissioners  appointed 
by  the  king,  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  those  laws,  and  the  accused 
were  entitled  to  trial  by  jury.1  Vows  of  chastity  were  only  binding 


1  Burnet  I.  258-9. — 31  Henry  VIII. 
c.  xiv.  Mr.  Froude  endeavors  to  re¬ 
lieve  Henry  of  the  responsibility  of  this 
measure,  and  quotes  Melanchthon  to 
show  that  its  cruelty  is  attributable  to 
Gardiner  (Hist.  Engl.  III.  395).  He 
admits,  however,  that  the  bill  as  passed 
differs  but  slightly  from  that  presented 
by  the  king  himself,  with  whom  the 
committee  which  framed  it  must  have 
acted  in  concert.  According  to  Strype, 


“  The  Parliament  men  said  little  against 
this  bill,  but  seemed  all  unanimous  for 
it ;  neither  did  the  Lord  Chancellor 
Audley,  no,  nor  the  Lord  Privy  Seal, 
Cromwel,  speak  against  it:  the  reason 
being,  no  question,  because  they  saw 
the  king  so  resolved  upon  it.  .  .  .  Nay, 
at  the  very  same  time  it  passed,  he 
(Cranmer)  stayed  and  protested  against 
it,  though  the  king  desired  him  to  go 
out,  since  he  could  not  consent  to  it. 


THE  SIX  ARTICLES. 


469 


on  those  who  had  taken  them  of  their  own  free  will  when  oyer  twenty- 
one  years  of  age.1  According  to  the  Act,  the  wives  of  priests  were 
to  be  put  away  by  June  24th,  but  on  that  day,  as  the  act  was  not 
yet  signed,  an  order  was  mercifully  made  extending  the  time  to 
July  12th.2 

Cranmer  argued,  reasonably  enough,  that  it  was  a  great  hardship, 
in  the  case  of  the  ejected  monks,  to  insist  on  the  observance  of  the 
vow  of  chastity,  when  those  of  poverty  and  obedience  were  dispensed 
with,  and  when  the  unfortunates  had  been  forcibly  deprived  of  all 
the  advantages,  safeguards,  and  protection  of  monastic  life.3  The 
matter,  however,  was  not  decided  by  reason,  but  by  the  whimsical 
perversity  of  a  self-opinionated  man,  who,  unfortunately,  had  the 
power  to  condense  his  polemical  notions  in  the  blood  of  his  subjects. 

To  comprehend  the  full  iniquity  of  this  savage  measure  we  must 
remember  the  rapid  progress  which  the  new  opinions  had  been 
making  in  England  for  twenty  years ;  the  tacit  encouragement  given 
them  by  the  suppression  of  the  religious  houses,  and  by  the  influence 
of  the  king’s  confidential  advisers ;  and  the  hopes  naturally  excited 
by  Henry’s  quarrel  with  Rome  and  negotiations  with  the  League  of 
Schmalkalden.  In  spite,  therefore,  of  the  comparatively  mild  pun¬ 
ishments  hitherto  imposed  on  priestly  marriage,  which  were  no  doubt 
practically  almost  obsolete,  such  unions  may  safely  be  assumed  as 
numerous.  Even  Cranmer  himself,  the  primate  of  Henry’s  church, 
was  twice  married,  his  second  wife,  then  living,  the  niece  of  Osiander, 


"Worcester  (Latimer)  also,  as  well  as 
Sarum  (Shaxton),  was  committed  to 
prison ;  and  he,  as  well  as  the  other, 
resigned  up  his  bishopric  upon  the  act  ” 
—  (Memorials  of  Cranmer,  Book  i. 
Chap.  19).  This  shows  us  how  the 
royal  influence  was  used.  Cranmer, 
indeed,  in  his  reply  to  the  Devonshire 
rebels,  when  in  1549  they  demanded 
the  restoration  of  the  Six  Articles,  ex¬ 
pressly  asserts  “that  if  the  king’s 
majesty  himself  had  not  come  person¬ 
ally  into  the  Parliament  house,  those 
lawes  had  never  passed”  (Ibid.  App. 
No.  XL.). 

1  31  Henry  VIII.  c.  6  (Pari.  Hist. 
I.  536-40). 

2  Pari.  Hist.  I.  540. 

There  is  a  story  current  that  soon 
after  the  passage  of  the  Act,  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk,  who  had  had  so  much  to  do 
with  it,  on  meeting  a  former  chaplain 
of  his  named  Lawney,  jocularly  said  to 


him  “  O,  my  Lawney  (knowing  him  of 
old  much  to  favor  priests’  matrimony), 
whether  may  priests  now  have  wives  or 
no  ?”  “  If  it  please  your  grace,”  replied 
he,  “  I  cannot  well  tell  whether  priests 
may  have  wives  or  no ;  but  well  I  wot, 
and  am  sure  of  it,  for  all  your  act,  that 
wives  will  have  priests.” — Strype’s 
Memorials  of  Cranmer,  Book  i.  Chap, 
viii. 

3  Dr.  London  chronicles  the  troubles 
of  this  class.  “  I  perceyve  many  of 
the  other  sortt,  monkes  and  chanons, 
whiche  be  yonge  lustie  men,  allways 
fatt  fedde,  lyving  in  ydelnes  and  at 
rest,  be  sore  perplexide  that  now  being 
prestes  they  may  nott  retorn  and 
marye  ”  (Suppression  of  Monasteries,  p. 
215). 

Nicander  Nucius  asserts  that  many 
did  marry  openly — clTJdvq  6e  ywaiaag 
EwSfiag  awevvovg  EioayofLEVOvg  ”  (Op.  cit. 

p.  71). 


470 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


being  kept  under  a  decent  veil  of  secrecy  in  his  palace.1  When, 
after  his  fruitless  resistance  to  the  Six  Articles,  the  bill  was  passed, 
he  sent  his  wife  to  her  friends  in  Germany,  until  the  death  of  his 
master  enabled  him  to  bring  her  back  and  acknowledge  her  openly ; 2 
but  vast  numbers  of  unfortunate  pastors  could  not  have  had  the 
opportunity,  and  perhaps  lacked  the  self-control,  thus  to  arrange 
their  domestic  affairs.  Even  the  gentle  Melanchthon  was  moved 
from  his  ordinary  equanimity,  and  ventured  to  address  to  his  royal 
correspondent  a  remonstrance  expressing  his  horror  of  the  cruelty 
which  could  condemn  to  the  scaffold  a  man  whose  sole  guilt  consisted 
in  not  abandoning  the  wife  to  whom  he  had  promised  fidelity  through 
good  and  evil,  before  God  and  man — a  cruelty  which  could  find  no 
precedent  in  any  code  that  man  had  previously  dared  to  frame.3 

As  might  be  expected,  numerous  divorces  of  married  priests  fol¬ 
lowed  this  Draconian  legislation,  and  these  divorces  were  held  good 
by  the  act  of  1549,  which,  under  Edward  VI.,  granted  full  liberty 
in  the  premises  to  ecclesiastics.4  Even  Henry,  however,  began  to 
feel  that  he  had  gone  too  far,  and  the  influence  of  Cromwell  was 
sufficient  to  prevent  the  harshest  features  of  the  law  from  being  en¬ 
forced  in  all  their  odious  severity,  especially  as  the  projected  marriage 
with  Ann  of  Cleves  and  the  alliance  with  the  German  Lutherans 
rendered  active  persecution  in  the  highest  degree  impolitic.  When 


1  His  first  marriage  was  entered  into 
while  he  was  still  quite  young,  and  be¬ 
fore  he  had  taken  orders.  The  second, 
however,  shows  that  he  acted  with  some 
independence,  for  it  took  place  in  1581, 
before  Henry’s  open  rupture  with 
Rome,  and  while  he  was  ambassador  to 
the  Emperor.  At  that  time  he  was 
King’s  chaplain  and  archdeacon  of 
Taunton,  and  his  nuptials  therefore 
were  plainly  an  indication  of  heresy. 
— Strype’s  Memorials  of  Cranraer, 
Book  i.  Chap,  iii.,  Book  in.  Chap, 
xxvii. 

2  Burnet  I.  256-7.  It  was  not  untd 

1543  that  he  ventured  to  confess  this  to 
the  king  (Ibid.  p.  328).  At  his  trial 
in  1556  his  two  marriages  were  one  of 
the  points  of  accusation  against  him 
(Ibid.  II.  339). 

Sanders,  in  commenting  upon  Cran- 
mer’s  time-serving  disposition,  which 
enabled  him  to  accommodate  himself  to 
Henry’s  capricious  opinions,  and  yet  to 
enter  fully  into  the  reformatory  ideas 
predominant  under  Edward  VI.,  does 


not  fail  to  satirize  his  connubial  pro¬ 
pensities.  “Unum  illud  molestissime 
tamen  ferens,  quod  meretricem  quan- 
dam  suam  non  poterat  palam  uxoris 
loco  libere  habere,  quia  id  non  laturum 
Henricum  sciebat,  sed  partim  domi  earn 
occultare,  partim  cum  foras  prodiret, 
cista  quadam  ad  id  affabre  facta  inclu- 
sam,  secum  una  circumferre  cogeretur. 
Iste  ergo  jam  desiit  esse  Henricianus,  et 
tarn  ex  immatura  regis  Edouardi  aetate 
quam  ex  Protectoris  in  sectas  summa 
propensione,  suae  statim  simul  et  libi- 
dini  et  haeresi  habenas  laxandas  statuit; 
nam  et  scorto  suo  mox  est  publice  pro 
uxore  usus,  et  catechismum  Edouardo 
dedicatum,  falsae  impiaeque  doctrinae 
plenum,  in  lucem  edidit.” — De  Orig. 
et  Prog.  Schismatis  Anglicani,  p.  193 
(Ed.  1586). 

3  Melanchthon.  Epist.  Ed.  1565  p. 
34. 

4  2-3  Edw.  VI.  c.  21  (Pari.  Hist. 

I.  586). 


THE  SIX  ARTICLES. 


471 


the  comedy  of  Henry’s  fourth  marriage  culminated  in  the  tragedy 
of  Cromwell’s  ruin  (June,  1540),  the  reactionary  elements  again 
gathered  strength.  There  can  be  no  little  doubt  that  the  atrocity 
of  the  law  had  greatly  interfered  with  its  efficient  execution  and  had 
aroused  popular  feeling,  for  now,  although  the  Vicar-General  was 
removed,  the  Catholics  passed  with  speedy  alacrity  a  bill  moderating 
the  act  of  the  Six  Articles,  in  so  far  as  it  related  to  marriage  and 
concubinage.  For  capital  punishment  was  substituted  the  milder 
penalty  of  confiscation  to  the  king  of  all  the  property  and  revenue 
of  the  offenders.1 

The  Six  Articles,  as  thus  modified,  remained  the  law  of  England 
during  the  concluding  years  of  Henry’s  reign,  nor  is  it  likely  that 
any  one  ventured  to  urge  upon  him  seriously  a  relaxation  of  the 
principles  to  which  he  had  committed  himself  thus  definitely.  The 
fall  of  Cromwell  and  the  danger  to  which  Cranmer  was  exposed  for 
several  years  were  sufficient  to  insure  him  against  troublesome  re¬ 
monstrants,  even  if  his  increasing  irritability  and  capriciousness  had 
not  made  those  around  him  daily  more  alive  to  the  danger  of  thwart¬ 
ing  or  resisting  his  idlest  humor.  How  little  progress,  indeed,  the 
Reformation  had  thus  far  made  in  England  is  shown  in  a  letter 
written  in  1546  by  John  Hooper,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Gloucester 
and  Worcester,  during  the  exile  into  which  he  was  forced  by  the  act 
of  the  Six  Articles — “Our  king  has  destroyed  the  pope,  but  not 
popery ;  he  has  expelled  all  the  monks  and  nuns,  and  pulled  down 
their  monasteries;  he  has  caused  all  their  possessions  to  be  trans¬ 
ferred  into  his  exchequer,  and  yet  they  are  bound,  even  the  frail 
female  sex,  by  the  king’s  command,  to  perpetual  chastity.  England 
has  at  this  time  at  least  ten  thousand  nuns,  not  one  of  whom  is 
allowed  to  marry.  The  impious  mass,  the  most  shameful  celibacy 
of  the  clergy,  the  invocation  of  saints,  auricular  confession,  super¬ 
stitious  abstinence  from  meats,  and  purgatory,  were  never  before  held 
by  the  people  in  greater  esteem  than  at  the  present  moment.”2 


1  32  Hen.  VIII.  c.  10. — Burnet  I. 
282. — Pari.  Hist.  I.  575. 

Richard  Hilles,  writing  in  1541  to 
Henry  Bullinger,  assumes  that  this  mod¬ 
ification  of  the  Six  Articles  only  applied 
to  those  who  were  guilty  ot  incontin¬ 
ence,  and  that  it  did  not  “  appear  to  the 
king  at  all  extreme  still  to  hang  those 
clergymen  who  marry  or  who  retain 
those  wives  whom  they  had  married  pre¬ 


vious  to  the  former  statue”  (Original 
Letters,  Parker  Soc.  Pub.  p.  205) — but 
both  Burnet  and  the  Parliamentary 
History  make  no  such  distinction,  and 
in  the  abstract  of  the  bill  as  printed  in 
the  Statues  at  Large  (I.  281)  it  is  de¬ 
scribed  as  applicable  to  “  priests  married 
or  unmarried.” 

Hooper  to  Bullinger.  —  Original 
Letters,  Parker  Soc.  Pub.  p.  36. 


472 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


On  the  28th  of  January,  1547,  Henry  VIII.  died,  and  Edward  VI. 
succeeded  to  the  perilous  throne.  Not  yet  ten  years  of  age,  his  gov¬ 
ernment  of  course  received  its  direction  from  those  around  him,  and 
the  rivalry  between  the  protector  Somerset  and  the  chancellor  Wri- 
othesley,  Earl  of  Southampton,  threw  the  former  into  the  hands 
of  the  progressives,  as  the  latter  was  the  acknowledged  head  of  the 
reactionary  party.  The  ruin  of  Southampton  and  the  triumph  of 
Somerset,  strengthened  by  his  successful  campaign  in  Scotland,  soon 
began  to  develop  their  natural  consequences  on  the  religion  of  the 
country.  Under  the  auspices  of  Cranmer,  a  Convocation  was  assem¬ 
bled,  which  wTas  empowered  to  decide  all  questions  in  controversy. 
When  the  primate  was  anxious  to  again  enjoy  the  solace  of  his  wife’s 
company  and  to  relieve  both  her  and  himself  from  the  stigma  of  un¬ 
lawful  marriage,  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  subject  of  celibacy 
would  receive  early  and  appropriate  attention ;  and  so  confident  were 
the  reformers  of  success  that  they  did  not  hesitate  to  enter  into  matri¬ 
mony  without  waiting  for  any  formal  sanction.1  Accordingly,  on 
December  17,  1547,  a  proposition  vras  submitted  to  the  effect  that 
all  canons,  statutes,  laws,  decrees,  usages,  and  customs,  interfering 
with  or  prohibiting  marriage,  should  be  abrogated,  and  it  w'as  carried 
by  a  vote  of  58  to  22.  No  time  was  lost.  Two  days  afterwards  a 
bill  was  introduced  in  the  Commons  permitting  married  men  to  be 
priests  and  to  hold  benefices.  It  was  received  with  so  much  favor 
that  it  was  read  twice  the  same  day,  and  on  the  21st  it  was  sent  up 
to  the  Lords;  but  in  the  Upper  House  it  raised  debates  so  prolonged 
that,  as  the  members  wrere  determined  to  adjourn  before  Christmas, 
it  was  laid  aside.  This  might  be  the  more  readily  agreed  to,  since 
on  the  23d  an  act  was  approved  which  abolished  numerous  severe 
laws  of  the  former  reign,  including  the  statute  of  the  Six  Articles, 
and  wTas  immediately  followed  by  another  granting  the  use  of  the 
cup  to  the  laity  and  prohibiting  private  masses.2 

The  repeal  of  the  Six  Articles  left  the  marriage  of  the  clergy 
subject  to  the  previous  laws  of  Henry,  imposing  on  it  various  pains 
and  penalties,  but  with  the  votes  recorded  in  Convocation  and  Parlia- 


1  Thus  Dr.  Parker,  afterwards  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Canterbury,  was  married  on 
June  24th,  1547,  within  six  months 
after  Henry’s  death,  to  Margaret, 
daughter  of  Robert  Harlston  of  Mattis- 
hall.  As  he  had  been  in  priest’s  orders 
since  1227,  he  assumed  a  liberty  which 
was  not  even  asked  of  Parliament  until 


nearly  eighteen  months  later  (see  his 
autobiographical  memoranda  in  his  Cor¬ 
respondence,  pp.  vii. ,  x.,  Parker  Soc., 

1853). 

2  1  Edw.  I.  c.  1,  12  (Pari.  Hist.  L 
582-4).— Wilkins  IV.  16.— Burnet, 
II.  40,  41 ;  III.  189. 


PRIESTLY  MARRIAGE  LEGALIZED. 


473 


ment,  it  is  not  likely  that  much  vigor  was  displayed  in  their  enforce¬ 
ment.  Those  interested  could  thus  afford  to  await  the  reassembling 
of  the  Houses,  which  did  not  take  place  until  November  24,  1548, 
but  they  claimed  the  reward  of  their  patience  by  an  early  hearing  in 
the  session.  On  the  3d  of  December  a  bill  was  introduced,  similar 
to  that  of  the  previous  year,  rendering  married  men  eligible  to  the 
priesthood ;  it  passed  second  reading  on  the  5th,  and  third  reading 
on  the  6th.  Apparently  encouraged  by  the  favorable  reception 
accorded  to  it,  the  friends  of  the  measure  resolved  on  demanding 
further  privileges.  The  bill  was  therefore  laid  aside,  and  on  the 
next  day  a  new  one  was  presented  which  granted  the  additional 
liberty  of  marriage  to  those  already  in  orders.  It  conceded  to  the 
established  opinions  the  fact  that  it  were  better  that  the  clergy  should 
live  chaste  and  single,  yet,  “  as  great  filthiness  of  living  had  followed 
on  the  laws  that  compelled  chastity  and  prohibited  marriage,”  there¬ 
fore  all  laws  and  canons  inhibiting  sacerdotal  matrimony  should  be 
abolished.  This  bill,  after  full  discussion,  was  read  a  second  and 
third  time  on  the  10th  and  12th,  and  was  sent  up  to  the  Lords  on 
the  13th.  Again  the  Upper  House  was  in  no  haste  to  pass  it.  It 
lay  on  the  table  until  February  9,  1549,  when  it  wTas  stoutly  con¬ 
tested,  and,  after  being  recommitted,  it  finally  passed  on  the  19th, 
with  the  votes  of  nine  bishops  recorded  against  it.1 

Cranmer  and  his  friends  were  now  at  full  liberty  to  establish  the 
innovation  by  committing  the  clergy  individually  to  marriage,  and 
by  enlisting  the  popular  feeling  in  its  support.  During  the  discus¬ 
sion  they  had  not  been  idle.  Much  controversial  writing  had  occurred 
on  both  sides,  in  which  Poynette,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Winchester, 
took  an  active  part,  while  Bale,  Bishop  of  Ossory,  distinguished 
himself  on  the  same  side  by  raking  together  all  the  foul  stories 
that  could  be  collected  concerning  the  celibate  clergy — a  scandalous 
material  not  likely  to  be  lacking  in  either  quantity  or  quality. 
Burnet  declares  that  no  law  passed  during  the  reign  of  Edward 
excited  more  contradiction  and  censure,  and  the  matrimonialists  soon 
found  that,  even  with  the  act  of  parliament  in  their  favor,  their  course 
was  not  wholly  a  smooth  one.  Cranmer  ordered  a  visitation  in  his 
province,  and  directed  as  one  of  the  points  for  inquiry  and  animad¬ 
version,  “Whether  any  do  contemn  married  priests,  and,  for  that 
they  be  married,  will  not  receive  the  communion  or  other  sacraments 


1  2-3  Edw.  YI.  c.  21  (Pari.  Hist.  I.  586).— Burnet  II.  88-9. 


474 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


at  their  hands,”1  which  distinctly  reveals  the  difficulties  encountered 
in  eradicating  the  convictions  of  centuries  from  the  popular  mind. 
Sanders  says,  and  with  every  appearance  of  probability,  that  the 
Archbishop  of  York  united  with  Cranmer  in  ordering  a  visitation 
of  the  whole  kingdom,  during  which  the  visitors  investigated  par¬ 
ticularly  the  morals  of  the  clergy,  and  used  every  argument  to  impel 
them  to  marriage,  not  only  declaring  celibacy  to  be  most  dangerous 
to  salvation,  but  intimating  that  all  who  adhered  to  it  would  be 
regarded  as  papists  and  enemies  of  the  king.2  The  active  interest 
which  Cranmer  took  in  the  question  is  manifested  by  the  fact  that 
when  Dr.  Richard  Smith,  who  had  fled  to  Scotland  in  consequence 
of  having  endeavored  to  stir  up  a  tumult  at  Oxford  against  Peter 
Martyr,  desired  to  make  his  peace  and  return,  the  inducement  which 
he  offered  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  obtain  for  him  the 
king’s  pardon  was  that  he  would  write  a  book  in  favor  of  priestly 
marriage,  as  he  had  previously  done  against  it.3 

The  Reformers  speedily  found  that  they  were  not  to  escape  without 
opposition.  The  masses  of  the  people  throughout  England  were  in 
a  state  of  discontent.  The  vast  body  of  abbey  lands  acquired  by 
the  gentry  and  now  inclosed  bore  hard  upon  many ;  the  raising  of 
rents  showed  that  secular  landlords  were  less  charitable  than  the 
ancient  proprietors  of  the  soil;  the  increase  of  sheep-husbandry 
threw  many  farm  laborers  out  of  employ;4 * *  and  the  savage  enact¬ 
ments,  already  alluded  to,  against  the  unfortunate  expelled  monks 
show  how  large  an  element  of  influential  disaffection  was  actively  at 
work  in  the  substratum  of  society.  Those  priests  who  disapproved 


1  "Wilkins  IY.  26. — Cardwell’s  Doc¬ 
umentary  Annals,  I.  59.  Wilkins  and 
Cardwell  date  this7,  in  1547,  which  is 
evidently  impossible.  Burnet  (II.  102) 
alludes  to  it.'under  1549,  which  is  much 
more  likely  to  he  correct. 

2  Sanderi  Schisma  Anglic,  pp.  214-5. 

3  Strvpe,  Memorials  of  Cranmer,  Bk. 
ii.  chap.  14. — Smith  subsequently  at 
Louvain  continued  to  urge  the  necessity 
of  celibacy  and  was  answered  by  Peter 

Martyr.  Strype  calls  him  a  filthy 
fellow,  notorious  for  lewdness,  and  his 
championship  of  chastity  excited  some 
merriment.  There  is  an  epigram  upon 

him  by  Lawrence  Humphrey — 

“  Haud  satis  affabre  tractans  fabrilia 
Smitbus 

Librum  de  vita  coelibe  composuit 


Dumque  pudicitiam,  dum  vota  monastica 
laudat, 

Stuprat,  sacra  notans  foedera  conjugii.” 

(Ibid.  Chap.  25.) 

4  The  vast  growth  of  the  sheep-farms 
had  long  been  a  subject  of  complaint. 
Even  as  early  as  1516,  Sir  Thomas 
More  describes  with  indignant  energy 
the  misery  caused  by  the  ejectment  of  the 
agricultural  population  in  order  to  form 
enormous  sheep-walks,  which  were 
found  more  profitable  to  the  landlords 
than  ordinary  farming.  He  declares 
that  the  sheep  “  tarn  edaces  atque  in- 
domitae  esse  cceperunt,  ut  homines  de- 
vorent  ipsos,  agros,  domos,  oppida 
vastent  ac  depopulentur.”  —  Utopia, 
Lib.  I. 


RESISTANCE  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


475 


of  the  rapid  Protestantizing  process  adopted  by  the  court  could 
hardly  fail  to  take  advantage  of  opportunities  so  tempting,  and  they 
accordingly  fanned  the  spark  into  a  flame.  The  enforcement  of  the 
new  liturgy,  on  Whitsunday,  1549,  seemed  the  signal  of  revolt. 
Numerous  risings  took  place,  which  were  readily  quelled,  until  one 
in  Devonshire  assumed  alarming  proportions.  Ten  thousand  men 
in  arms  made  demands  for  relief  in  religious  as  well  as  temporal 
matters.  Lord  Russel,  unable  to  meet  them  in  the  field,  endeavored 
to  gain  time  by  negotiation,  and  offered  to  receive  their  complaints. 
These  were  fifteen  in  number,  of  which  several  demanded  the  resto¬ 
ration  of  points  of  the  old  religion,  and  one  insisted  on  the  revival 
of  the  Six  Articles.  On  their  refusal,  another  set  was  drawn  up, 
in  which  not  only  were  the  Six  Articles  called  for,  but  also  a  special 
provision  enforcing  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy.  This  was  likewise 
rejected;  but  during  the  delay  another  rising  occurred  in  Norfolk, 
reckoned  at  twenty  thousand  men,  and  yet  another  of  less  formidable 
dimensions  in  Yorkshire.  Russel  finally  scattered  the  men  of  Devon, 
while  the  Earl  of  Warwick  succeeded  in  suppressing  the  rebels  of 
Norfolk,  when  the  promise  of  an  amnesty  caused  the  Yorkshiremen 
to  disperse.1 

The  question  of  open  resistance  thus  was  settled.  Cranmer  and 
his  friends  had  now  leisure  to  consolidate  their  advantages  and 
organize  a  system  that  should  be  permanent.  In  1551,  he  and 
Ridley  prepared  with  great  care  a  series  of  forty-two  articles,  em¬ 
bodying  the  faith  of  the  church  of  England,  which  was  adopted  by 
the  convocation  in  1552,  and  was  ordered  to  be  signed  by  all  men 
in  orders  and  all  candidates  for  ordination.2  Burnet  speaks  of  it 
as  bringing  the  Anglican  doctrine  and  worship  to  perfection.  It 
remained  unaltered  during  the  rest  of  Edward’s  reign,  and  under 
Elizabeth  it  was  only  modified  verbally  in  the  recension  which  re¬ 
sulted  in  the  famous  Thirty-nine  Articles — the  foundation  stone  of 
the  Episcopalian  edifice.  Of  these  forty-two  articles,  the  thirty-first 
declared  that  “Bishops,  priests,  and  deacons  are  not  commanded 
by  God’s  law  to  vow  the  estate  of  a  single  life  or  to  abstain  from 
marriage.”3 


1  Burnet  II.  117-9. 

2  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memorials,  II.  420. 

3  Burnet  II.  Collect.  217.  In  the 
Latin  version,  “  Episcopis,  presbyteris 


et  dia, corns  non  est  mandatum  ut  cceli- 
batum  voveant ;  neque,  jure  divino 
coguntur  matrimonio  abstinere  "  (Wil¬ 
kins  IV.  76). 


476 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


The  canon  law  had  thus  invested  the  marriage  of  the  clergy  with 
all  the  sanctity  that  the  union  of  man  and  wife  could  possess.  Yet 
still  the  deep-seated  conviction  of  the  people  as  to  the  impropriety 
of  such  proceedings  remained,  troubling  the  repose  of  those  who  had 
entered  into  matrimony,  and  doubtless  operating  as  a  restraint  upon 
the  numbers  of  the  imitators  of  Cranmer.  Among  the  interroga¬ 
tories  drawn  up  by  John  Hooper  for  the  visitation  of  his  diocese  of 
Gloucester,  in  1552,  is  one  which  enquires  whether  any  midwife 
refuses  to  attend  the  confinement  of  women  who  are  married  to 
ministers  of  the  church1 — a  suggestion  which  indicates  how  rooted 
was  the  popular  aversion  to  such  matches.  If  Strype’s  description 
of  the  clergy  of  the  period,  indeed,  be  correct,  there  was  nothing  in 
the  character  of  the  body  to  overcome  the  popular  aversion  in  con¬ 
sideration  of  its  purity  and  devotion  to  its  sacred  duties.2  The  act 
of  1549  had  to  a  certain  extent  justified  these  prejudices  by  admit¬ 
ting  the  preferableness  of  a  single  life  in  the  ministers  of  Christ,  and 
it  was  resolved  to  remove  every  possible  stigma  by  a  solemn  declara¬ 
tion  of  parliament.  A  bill  was  therefore  prepared  and  speedily 
passed  (Feb.  10th,  1552),  which  reveals  how  strong  was  the  popular 
opposition,  and  how  uncertain  the  position  of  the  wives  and  children 
of  the  clergy.  It  declares  “  That  many  took  occasion,  from  the 
words  in  the  act  formerly  made  about  this  matter,  to  say  that  it  was 
only  permitted,  as  usury  and  other  unlawful  things  were,  for  the 
avoidance  of  greater  evils,  who  thereupon  spoke  slanderously  of  such 
marriages,  and  accounted  the  children  begotten  in  them  to  be  bas¬ 
tards,  to  the  high  dishonor  of  the  King  and  Parliament,  and  the 
learned  clergy  of  the  Realm,  who  had  determined  that  the  laws 
against  priests’  marriages  were  most  unlawful  by  the  law  of  God; 
to  which  they  had  not  only  given  their  assent  in  the  Convocation, 
but  signed  it  with  their  hands.  These  slanders  did  also  occasion 
that  the  Word  of  God  was  not  heard  with  due  reverence.”  It  was 
therefore  enacted  “  That  such  marriages  made  according  to  the  rules 
prescribed  in  the  Book  of  Service  should  be  esteemed  good  and  valid, 
and  that  the  children  begot  in  them  should  be  inheritable  according 
to  law.”3 


1  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memorials,  II.  355. 

2  Ibid.  p.  445.  —  “Our  curate  is 
naught,  an  Assehead,  a  Dodipot,  a 
Lack-Latine,  and  can  do  nothing.” 

3  5-6  Edw.  VI.  c.  12  (Pari.  Hist.  I. 
594). — Burnet  II.  192. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  that  the 


modern  “Ritualistic”  portion  of  the 
English  clergy  adopt  the  same  line  of 
argument  from  the  marriage  service  of 
the  Anglican  ritual,  and  apply  it  not 
only  to  the  priesthood  but  to  the  whole 
body  of  believers.  See  “  The  Church 
and  the  'World,”  edited  by  the  Rev. 
Orby  Shipley,  2d  edition,  1866,  p.  161. 


ACCESSION  OF  MARY. 


477 


A  still  further  confirmation  of  the  question  was  designed  in  a  body 
of  ecclesiastical  law  which  was  for  several  years  in  preparation  by 
various  commissions  appointed  for  the  purpose.  In  this  it  was  pro¬ 
posed  to  make  the  abrogation  of  celibacy  even  more  distinctly  a 
matter  of  faith,  for,  in  the  second  Title,  among  the  various  heresies 
condemned  is  that  which,  through  the  suggestion  of  the  Devil, 
asserts  that  admission  to  holy  orders  takes  away  the  right  to  marry. 
This  work,  however,  though  completed,  had  not  yet  received  the 
royal  assent,  when  the  death  of  Edward  VI.  caused  it  to  pass  out 
of  sight  until  1571,  when  it  was  printed  by  Eoxe  and  brought  to 
the  attention  of  Parliament,  but  was  laid  aside  owing  to  the  oppo¬ 
sition  of  Queen  Elizabeth.1 

If  the  Protestants  indulged  in  any  day-dreams  as  to  the  perma¬ 
nency  of  their  institutions,  they  were  not  long  in  finding  that  a 
change  of  rulers  was  destined  to  cause  other  changes  disastrous  to 
their  hopes.  Even  the  funeral  of  Edward,  on  the  8th  of  August, 
1558,  afforded  them  a  foretaste  of  what  was  in  store.  Although 
Cranmer  insisted  that  the  public  ceremonies  in  Westminster  Abbey 
should  be  conducted  according  to  the  reformed  rites,  Queen  Mary, 
still  resident  in  the  Tower,  had  private  obsequies  performed  with 
the  Roman  ritual,  where  Gardiner  celebrated  mortuary  mass  in 
presence  of  the  queen  and  some  four  hundred  attendants.  When 
the  incense  was  carried  around,  after  the  Gospel,  it  chanced  that  the 
chaplain  who  bore  it  was  a  married  man,  and  the  zealous  Dr.  Weston 
snatched  it  from  him,  exclaiming,  “  Shamest  thou  not  to  do  thine 
office,  having  a  wife  as  thou  hast  ?  The  queen  will  not  be  censed 
by  such  as  thou  !”2 

Trifling  as  was  this  incident,  it  foreboded  the  wrath  to  come. 
Though  Mary  was  not  crowned  until  October  1st,  she  had  issued 
writs  for  a  parliament  to  assemble  on  the  10th,  and,  as  an  entire 
change  in  the  religious  institutions  of  the  country  was  intended,  we 
may  not  uncharitably  believe  the  assertion  that  every  means  of  influ¬ 
ence  and  intimidation  wTas  employed  to  secure  the  return  of  reaction¬ 
ary  members.  These  efforts  were  crowned  with  complete  success. 


1  Reform.  Legg.  Eccles.  Tit.  de 
Hseresibus.  cap.  xx.  (Cardwell’s  Ed., 
Oxford,  1850,  p.  20).— Cf.  Tit.  de  Mat- 
rimonio  c.  ix.  (p.  44). 

2  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  III.  20. 


This  story  derives  additional  piquancy 
from  the  fact  that  this  Dr.  Weston  was 
somewhat  notorious  for  uncleanness  and 
was  subsequently  deprived  of  the 
Deanery  of  Windsor  for  adultery 
(Ibid.  pp.  111-2). 


478 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


The  Houses  had  not  sat  for  three  weeks,  when  a  bill  was  sent  down 
from  the  Lords  repealing  all  the  acts  of  Edward’s  reign  concerning 
religion,  including  specifically  those  which  permitted  the  marriage 
of  priests  and  legitimated  their  offspring ;  and  after  a  debate  of  six 
days  it  passed  the  Commons.1 

The  effect  of  this  was,  of  course,  to  revive  the  statute  of  the  Six 
Articles,  and  to  place  all  married  priests  at  the  mercy  of  the  queen ; 
and  as  soon  as  she  felt  that  she  could  safely  exercise  her  power,  she 
brought  it  to  bear  upon  the  offenders.  A  day  or  two  after  the  disso¬ 
lution  of  parliament  she  commenced  by  issuing  a  proclamation  in¬ 
hibiting  married  priests  from  officiating.2  The  Spanish  marriage 
being  agreed  upon  and  the  resultant  insurrection  of  Sir  Thomas 
Wyatt  being  suppressed,  Mary  recognized  her  own  strength,  and 
her  Romanizing  tendencies,  which  had  previously  been  somewhat 
restrained,  became  openly  manifested.  On  the  4th  of  March,  1554, 
she  issued  a  letter  to  her  bishops,  of  which  the  object  was  to  restore 
the  condition  of  affairs  under  Henry  VIII.,  except  that  the  royal 
prerogatives  as  head  of  the  church  were  expressly  disavowed.  It 
contained  eighteen  articles,  to  be  strictly  enforced  throughout  all 
dioceses.  Of  these  the  seventh  ordered  that  the  bishops  should  by 
summary  process  remove  and  deprive  all  priests  who  had  been  mar¬ 
ried  or  had  lived  scandalously,  sequestrating  their  revenues  during 
the  proceedings.  Article  VIII.  provided  that  widowers,  or  those  who 
promised  to  live  in  the  strictest  chastity,  should  be  treated  with  leni¬ 
ency,  and  receive  livings  at  some  distance  from  their  previous  abode, 
being  properly  supported  meanwhile;  while  Article  IX.  directed 
that  those  who  suffered  deprivation  should  not  on  that  account  be 
allowed  to  live  with  their  wives,  and  that  due  punishment  should  be 
inflicted  for  all  contumacy.3 

No  time  was  lost  in  carrying  out  these  regulations.  By  the  9th 


1  1  Mary  c.  2  (Pari.  Hist.  I.  609-10). 
— Burnet  II.  255. 

2  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memorials,  III.  52. 

3  Burnet  II.  Append.  264.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Strype,  Bonner’s  impatience  did 
not  wait  for  the  royal  injunctions,  for 
in  February  he  deprived  of  their  livings 
all  the  married  priests  in  his  diocese  of 
London  and  commanded  them  to  bring 
all  their  wives  within  a  fortnight  in 
order  that  they  might  be  divorced. — 
Memorials  of  Cranmer,  Bk.  hi.  chap. 
8. 


Julius  III.  issued  a  Bull,  March  8th, 
1554,  defining  Cardinal  Pole’s  legatine 
powers,  among  which  was  that  of  re¬ 
moving  the  excommunication  from 
married  clerks  and  legitimating  their 
children,  the  fathers  being  removed 
from  function  and  benefice,  separated 
from  their  wives,  and  subjected  to  pen¬ 
ance  (Cardwell’s  Documentary  An¬ 
nals,  I.  131).  This  was  the  course 
adopted  for  a  time,  but  as  the  king¬ 
dom  was  not  yet  formally  reconciled 
to  Rome,  the  action  had  was  under 
the  local  authorities. 


PROCEEDINGS  AGAINST  MARRIED  BISHOPS.  479 


of  the  same  month,  a  commission  was  already  in  session  at  York, 
which  cited  the  clergy  to  appear  before  it  on  the  12th.  From  an 
appeal  which  is  extant,  by  one  Simon  Pope,  rector  of  IVarmington, 
it  appears  that  men  wTere  deprived  without  citation  or  opportunity 
for  defence;1  and  that  this  was  not  infrequent  is  probable  from  the 
proceedings  commenced  against  offenders  of  the  highest  class,  de¬ 
signed  and  well  fitted  to  strike  terror  into  the  hearts  of  the  humbler 
parsons.  On  the  16th  a  commission  was  issued  to  the  Bishops  of 
Winchester  (Stephen  Gardiner),  London  (Bonner),  Durham,  St. 
Asaphs,  Chichester,  and  Landaff,  to  investigate  the  cases  of  the 
Archbishop  of  York  and  the  Bishops  of  St.  Davids,  Chester,  and 
Bristol,  who,  according  to  report,  had  given  a  most  pernicious  ex¬ 
ample  by  taking  wives,  in  contempt  of  God,  to  the  damage  of  their 
own  souls,  and  to  the  scandal  of  all  men.  Any  three  of  the  com¬ 
missioners  were  empowered  to  summon  the  accused  before  them,  and 
to  ascertain  the  truth  of  the  report  without  legal  delays  or  unneces¬ 
sary  circumlocution.  If  it  were  found  correct,  then  they  were 
authorized  to  remove  the  offenders  at  once  and  forever  from  their 
dignities,  and  also  to  impose  penance  at  discretion.  This  wTas  scant 
measure  of  justice,  considering  that  the  marriage  of  these  prelates 
had  been  contracted  under  sanction  of  law,  and,  if  that  law  had 
recently  been  repealed,  that  at  least  the  option  of  conforming  to  the 
new  order  of  things  could  not  decently  be  denied;  yet  even  this 
mockery  of  a  trial  was  apparently  withheld,  for  the  conge  d’elire  for 
their  successors  is  dated  March  18th,  only  two  days  after  the  com¬ 
mission  was  appointed.2 

During  the  summer  the  bishops  went  on  their  visitations.  The 
articles  prepared  by  Bonner  for  his  diocese  are  extant,  among  which 
we  find  directions  to  inquire  particularly  of  the  people  whether  their 
pastors  are  married,  and,  if  separated,  whether  any  communication 
or  intercourse  takes  place  between  them  and  their  wives ;  also, 
whether  any  one,  lay  or  clerical,  ventures  to  defend  sacerdotal 
matrimony.3  Few  of  the  weaker  brethren  could  escape  an  inqui¬ 
sition  so  searching  as  this,  and  though  some  controversy  arose,  and 


1  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  III.  Ap¬ 
pend.  33. — In  the  same  place  (p.  31) 
may  he  found  a  copy  of  the  summons 
served  upon  offenders  of  this  class. 

2  Burnet  II.  275  and  Append.  256. 
— Rymer  (T.  XV.  pp.  376-77)  gives  a 

similar  commission  dated  March  9th, 


issued  to  Stephen  Gardiner  to  eject  the 
canons  and  prebendaries  of  Westminster 
in  the  same  summary  manner.  The 
proceedings  throughout  England  were 
doubtless  framed  on  these  models. 

3  Burnet  II.  Append.  260. 


480 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


a  few  tracts  were  printed  in  defence  of  priestly  marriage,1  such  men 
as  Bonner  were  not  likely  to  shrink  from  the  thorough  prosecution 
of  the  work  which  they  had  undertaken. 

When  the  convocation  assembled  in  this  year,  it  was  therefore  to 
be  expected  that  only  orthodox  opinions  would  find  expression. 
Accordingly,  the  lower  House  presented  to  the  bishops  an  humble 
petition  praying  for  the  restoration  of  the  old  usages,  among  the 
points  of  which  are  requests  that  married  priests  be  forcibly  sepa¬ 
rated  from  their  wives,  and  that  those  who  endeavor  to  abandon 
their  order  be  subjected  to  special  animadversion.  This  clause  shows 
that  many  unfortunates  preferred  to  give  up  their  positions  and  lose 
the  means  of  livelihood,  rather  than  quit  the  wives  to  whom  they 
had  sworn  fidelity,  demanding,  as  we  shall  see,  much  subsequent 
conflicting  legislation.  The  social  complications  resulting  from  the 
change  of  religion  are  also  indicated  in  the  request  that  married 
nuns  may  be  divorced,  and  that  the  pretended  wives  of  priests  have 
full  liberty  to  marry  again.2 

Everything  being  thus  prepared,  the  purification  of  the  church 
from  married  heretics  was  prosecuted  with  vigor.  Archbishop  Parker 
states  that  there  were  in  England  some  16,000  clergymen,  of  whom 
12,000  were  deprived  on  this  account,  many  of  them  most  summarily; 
some  on  common  report,  without  trial,  others  without  being  sum¬ 
moned  to  appear  before  their  judges,  and  others  again  while  lying  in 
jail  for  not  obeying  the  summons.  Some  renounced  their  wives,  and 
were  yet  deprived,  while  those  who  were  deprived  were  also,  as  we 
have  seen,  forced  to  part  with  their  wives.  We  can  readily  believe 
that  the  most  ordinary  forms  of  justice  were  set  aside,  in  view  of  the 
illegal  and  indecorous  haste  of  the  proceedings  against  the  married 
bishops  described  above,  but  Parker’s  estimate  of  the  number  of 
sufferers  is  greatly  exaggerated.  According  to  Dr.  Tanner,  in  the 
diocese  of  Norfolk — then  estimated  at  one-eighth  of  the  whole  king¬ 
dom — there  were  only  835  deprivations  on  this  account;  and  at 
York,  from  April  27th  to  December  20th,  1554,  there  were  only 
fifty-one  ejected.3  It  is  probable,  therefore,  that  the  list  throughout 


1  Bishop  Poynette  wrote  a  book  en¬ 
titled  “An  Apologie  on  the  Godly 
Marriadge  of  Priestes,”  in  rejoinder 
to  Martin’s  “  Traictise  declaryng  and 
plainly  prouyng  that  the  pretensed 
marriage  of  priestes  and  professed  per- 
sones  is  no  marriage,”  which  was  a  re¬ 
ply  to  Poynette ’s  previous  work.  Bale 


also  issued  a  hitter  attack  on  Bonner’s 
Articles  (Cardwell’s  Documentary  An¬ 
nals,  I.  135)  and  Dr.  Parker,  afterwards 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  published  a 
voluminous  rejoinder  to  Martin. 

2  Wilkins  IV.  96-7. 

3  Burnet  II.  276;  III.  225-6. 


HUMILIATION  OF  MARRIED  PRIESTS. 


481 


England  would  not  exceed  three  thousand;  yet  when  to  these  are 
added  the  hosts  who  no  doubt  succeeded  in  retaining  their  positions 
by  a  compliance  with  the  law  in  quietly  putting  away  their  wives,1 
it  will  be  seen  that  the  privilege  of  marriage  had  been  eagerly  im¬ 
proved  by  the  clergy,  and  that  an  amount  of  misery  which  it  would 
he  difficult  to  estimate  was  caused  by  the  enforcement  of  the  canons. 

The  proceedings  in  the  case  of  John  Turner,  rector  of  St.  Leonard’s, 
London,  would  seem  to  show  that  the  extremity  of  humiliation  was 
inflicted  on  these  unfortunates.  Cited  on  March  16th  to  answer  to 
the  charge  of  being  a  married  man,  he  confessed  the  accusation,  and 
we  find  him  on  the  19th  condemned  to  lose  his  benefice  and  be  sus¬ 
pended  from  all  priestly  functions,  to  be  divorced  from  his  wife,  and  to 
undergo  such  further  punishment  as  the  canons  required.  The  sen¬ 
tence  of  divorce  soon  followed,  and  on  May  14th  he  was  obliged  to 
do  penance  in  his  late  church  in  Eastcheap,  holding  a  lighted  candle 
in  his  hand  and  solemnly  declaring  to  the  assembled  congregation — 
“Good  people,  I  am  come  hither,  at  this  present  time,  to  declare 
unto  you  my  sorrowful  and  penitent  heart,  for  that,  being  a  priest, 
I  have  presumed  to  marry  one  Amy  German,  widow;  and,  under 
pretence  of  that  matrimony,  contrary  to  the  canons  and  custom  of 
the  universal  church,  have  kept  her  as  my  wife,  and  lived  contrary 
to  the  canons  and  ordinances  of  the  church,  and  to  the  evil  example 
of  good  Christian  people;  whereby  now,  being  ashamed  of  my  former 
wicked  living  here,  I  ask  Almighty  God  mercy  and  forgiveness,  and 
the  whole  Church,  and  am  sorry  and  penitent  even  from  the  bottom 
of  my  heart  therefore.  And  in  token  hereof,  I  am  here,  as  you  see, 
to  declare  and  show  unto  you  my  repentance :  that  before  God,  on 
the  latter  day,  you  may  testify  with  me  of  the  same.  And  I  most 
heartily  and  humbly  pray  and  desire  you  all,  whom  by  this  evil 
example  doing  I  have  greatly  offended,  that  for  your  part  you  will 
forgive  me,  and  remember  me  in  your  prayers,  that  God  may  give 
me  grace,  that  hereafter  I  may  live  a  continent  life,  according  to  His 
laws  and  the  godly  ordinances  of  our  mother  the  holy  Catholic 


1  A  specimen  of  the  form  of  restitu¬ 
tion  subscribed  by  those  who  were  re¬ 
stored  on  profession  of  amendment 
and  repentance  has  been  preserved — 
“Whereas  ...  I  the  said  Robert  do 
now  lament  and  bewail  my  life  past, 
and  the  offence  by  me  committed ;  in¬ 
tending  firmly  by  God’s  grace  here¬ 
after  to  lead  a  pure,  chast,  and  con¬ 
tinent  life  .  .  .  and  do  here  before  my 


competent  judge  and  ordinary  most 
humbly  require  absolution  of  and  from 
all  such  censures  and  pains  of  the  laws 
as  by  my  said  offence  and  ungodly  be¬ 
havior  I  have  incurred  and  deserved : 
promising  firmly  .  .  .  never  to  return 
to  the  said  Agnes  Staunton  as  to  my 
wife  or  concubine,  &c.” —  (Wilkins 
IV.  104). 


31 


482 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


Church,  through  and  by  His  grace.  And  do  here,  before  you  all, 
openly  promise  for  to  do  during  my  life.”1  Such  scenes  as  these 
were  well  calculated  to  produce  the  effect  desired  upon  the  people, 
but  we  can  only  guess  at  the  terrorism  which  was  requisite  to  force 
educated  and  respectable  men  to  submit  to  such  degradation. 

All  this  was  done  by  the  royal  authority,  wielding  the  ecclesiasti¬ 
cal  power  usurped  by  Henry  VIII.  Strictly  speaking,  it  was  highly 
irregular  and  uncanonical,  but  as  the  papal  supremacy  was  yet  in 
abeyance  it  could  not  be  accomplished  otherwise.  At  last,  however, 
the  kingdom  was  ripe  for  reconciliation  with  Rome.  In  calling  the 
parliament  of  1554,  the  queen  issued  a  circular  letter  to  the  sheriffs 
commanding  them  to  admonish  the  people  to  return  members  “  of  the 
wise,  grave,  and  Catholic  sort.”2  Her  wishes  were  fulfilled,  and  ere 
the  year  was  out  Cardinal  Pole  was  installed  with  full  legatine 
powers,  and  Julius  III.  had  issued  his  Bull  of  Indulgence,  reuniting 
England  to  the  church  from  which  she  had  been  violently  severed.3 
An  obedient  parliament  lost  no  time  in  repealing  all  statutes  adverse 
to  the  claims  of  the  Holy  See,  but  its  subserviency  had  limits,  and 
one  class  largely  interested  in  the  reforms  of  Henry  had  sufficient 
influence  to  maintain  its  heretical  rights.  The  church  lands  granted 
or  sold  to  laymen  were  not  revendicated.  Indeed,  the  queen,  in  her 
call  for  the  parliament,  had  felt  it  necessary  to  contradict  the  rumour 
that  she  and  Philip  intended  the  “alteration  of  any  particular  Man's 
Possessions.”  Though  the  transactions  by  which  they  had  been 
acquired  were  wholly  illegal ;  though  no  duration  of  possession  could 
bar  the  imprescriptible  rights  of  the  church,  yet  the  nobles  and 
country  gentlemen  enriched  by  the  spoliation  were  too  numerous  and 
powerful,  and  the  reclamation  of  the  kingdom  was  too  important,  to 
incur  any  peril  by  unseasonably  insisting  on  reparation  for  Henry’s 
injustice.  The  abbatial  manors  and  rich  priories,  the  chantries,  hos¬ 
pitals,  and  colleges  were  therefore  left  in  the  impious  hands  of  those 
who  had  been  fortunate  enough  to  secure  them,4  and  the  miserable 


1  Strype’s  Memorials  of  Cranmer, 
Bk.  in.  chap.  8. — Nov.  14th,  1554,  we 
find  a  record  of  four  priests  doing  pen¬ 

ance  in  white  shirts  and  holding  candles 
at  Paul’s  Cross,  London,  while  Harps- 
field  preached  a  sermon. —  Strype’s 
Eccles.  Memor.  III.  203. 

3  Pari.  Hist.  I.  61G. 

3  The  Bull  is  dated  December  24, 
1554  (Wilkins  IV.  111). — Parliament 


repealed  the  attainder  of  Cardinal 
Pole,  November  22d,  and  on  the  24th 
he  arrived  in  London  as  legate  (Bur¬ 
net  II.  2G1-2). 

4  1  and  2  Phil,  and  Mary  c.  8  (Pari. 
Hist.  I.  624).  The  title  of  the  bill 
shows  that,  though  the  Parliament  was 
almost  exclusively  Catholic,  it  was 
disposed  to  make  its  obedience  to  Rome 
the  price  for  obtaining  confirmation  of 


QUESTION  OF  THE  CHURCH-  LANDS. 


483 


remnants  of  the  religious  orders  were  left  to  the  conscience  of  the 
queen,  who  made  haste  to  get  rid  of  such  fragments  of  the  spoil  as 
had  been  retained  by  the  crown.1 

Whatever  tacit  understanding  there  may  have  been  on  this  delicate 
subject  between  Queen  Mary  and  Pope  Julius  was  not  assented  to  by 
the  imperious  Caraffa  who  shortly  afterwards  ascended  the  chair  of 
St.  Peter.  Elected  May  23,  1555,  he  lost  no  time  in  proclaiming 
the  imprescriptible  rights  of  the  church,  and  by  his  Bull  “Injunctum 
nobis”  issued  June  21st,  he  pronounced  null  and  void  “de  apostolicas 
potestatis  plenitudine”  all  transactions  by  which  ecclesiastical  pos¬ 
sessions  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  laymen,  who  were  duly  threat¬ 
ened  with  excommunication  for  prolonged  attempts  to  hold  their 
unhallowed  acquisitions.2  The  effort  of  course  was  fruitless,  but  the 
spirit  in  which  the  English  protestants  watched  the  apparent  opening 
of  a  breach  between  England  and  Rome  is  well  expressed  in  a  letter 
of  Aug.  23,  1555,  from  Sir  Richard  Morrison  to  Henry  Bullinger — 
“  This  anti-Paul,  Paul  of  the  apostasy,  the  servant  of  the  devil,  this 
antichrist  newly  created  at  Rome,  thinks  it  but  a  very  small  plunder 
that  is  offered  to  him,  that  he  is  again  permitted  in  England  to 
tyrannise  over  our  consciences,  unless  the  revenues  be  restored  to  the 
monasteries,  that  is,  the  pigsties ;  the  patrimony,  as  he  calls  it,  of  the 
souls  that  are  now  serving  in  the  filth  of  purgatory.  Our  ambassa¬ 
dors,  who  went  to  Rome  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  back  the  wolf 
upon  the  sheep  of  Christ,  are  now  with  the  emperor,  and  bring  us 
these  demands  of  the  chief  pontiff:  God  grant  that  he  may  urge 
them  in  every  possible  way.”3  The  hopes  of  the  reformers  however 
were  disappointed,  for  Paul  IV.  gave  way,  and  on  the  reassembling 
of  Parliament,  Oct.  23,  1555,  a  Bull  was  read  by  which  the  pope 
assented  to  the  arrangement  agreed  to  by  Cardinal  Pole,  confirming 
the  church  lands  to  their  new  possessors.4 

Cardinal  Pole,  indeed,  was  not  remiss  in  giving  the  sanction  of  the 
papal  authority  to  all  that  had  been  done.  Convoking  a  synod,  he 
issued,  in  1555,  his  Legatine  Constitutions,  by  which  all  marriages 
of  those  included  in  the  prohibited  orders  were  declared  null  and 


the  abbey  lands — “A  Bill  for  repealing 
all  statutes,  articles,  and  provisoes  made 
against  the  See  Apostolique  of  Rome, 
since  the  20th  of  Henry  VIII.,  and 
for  the  establishment  of  all  spiritual 
and  ecclesiastical  possessions  and  here¬ 
ditaments  conveyed  to  the  laity." 


1  2  and  3  Phil,  and  Mary,  c.  4 
(Pari.  Hist.  pp.  626-8). 

2  Mag.  Bull.  Roman.  T.  I.  p.  809. 

3  Original  Letters,  Parker  Soc.  Pub. 
p.  149. 

4  Pari.  Hist.  I.  626;  II.  342. 


484 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


void.  Such  apostates  were  ordered  to  be  separated  by  ecclesiastical 
censures  and  by  whatever  legal  processes  might  be  required ;  all  who 
dared  to  justify  such  marriages  or  to  obstinately  remain  in  their  un¬ 
holy  bonds  were  to  be  rigorously  prosecuted  and  punished  according 
to  the  ancient  canons,  which  were  revived  and  declared  to  be  in  full 
force  in  order  to  prevent  similar  scandals  for  the  future.1  As  the 
queen  by  special  warrant  had  decreed  that  all  canons  adopted  by 
synods  should  have  the  full  effect  of  laws  binding  on  the  clergy, 
these  constitutions  at  once  restored  matters  to  their  pristine  con¬ 
dition.  It  w^as  doubtless  in  order  to  mark  in  the  most  conspicuous 
manner  his  detestation  of  clerical  marriage  that  Pole  descended  to 
the  pettiness  of  ordering  the  body  of  Peter  Martyr’s  wife  to  he  dug 
up  from  its  resting-place,  near  the  tomb  of  St.  Frideswide  in  Christ’s 
Church,  Oxford,  and  to  he  buried  in  a  dung-hill.2 

It  was  easy  to  pass  decrees;  it  was  doubtless  gratifying  to  eject 
married  priests  by  the  thousand  and  to  grant  their  livings  to  hungry 
reactionaries  or  to  the  crowd  of  needy  churchmen  whom  Italy  had 
ever  ready  to  supply  the  spiritual  wants  and  collect  the  tithes  of  the 
faithful.  All  this  was  readily  accomplished,  hut  the  difficulty  lay  in 
overcoming  the  eternal  instincts  of  human  nature.  The  struggle  to 
effect  this  commenced  at  once. 

It  was,  indeed,  hardly  to  be  expected  that  those  who  had  entered 
into  matrimony  with  the  full  conviction  of  its  sanctity  would  willingly 
abandon  all  intercourse  with  their  wives,  although  they  might  yield 
a  forced  assent  to  the  pressure  of  the  laws,  the  prospect  of  poverty, 
and  the  certainty  of  infamous  punishment.  Accordingly  we  find 
that  the  necessity  at  once  arose  of  watching  the  “reconciled”  priests, 
who  continued  to  do  in  secret  what  they  could  no  longer  practise 
openly.  Some,  indeed,  found  the  restrictions  so  onerous  that  they 
endeavored  to  release  themselves  from  the  bonds  of  the  church  rather 
than  to  submit  longer  to  the  separation  from  their  wives ;  and  this 
apparently  threatened  so  great  a  dearth  in  the  ranks  of  the  clergy 


1  Card.  Poli  Constit.  Legat.  Decret. 
v.  (Wilkins  IV.  800). 

2  Strype’s  Parker,  Book  n.  chap.  vi. 
In  1561  the  remains  were  exhumed 
from  the  stables  of  Dr.  Marshall,  the 
previous  dean  of  Christ’s  Church,  and 
reburied  in  the  church,  the  precaution 
being  taken  of  mingling  them  with  the 
bones  of  St.  Frideswide,  so  as  to  pre¬ 
vent  any  future  profanation  in  case  of 


another  revolution  of  religion.  The 
affair  excited  considerable  attention  at 
the  time,  and  produced  the  following 
epigram : 

Femineum  sexum  Romani  semper  amarunt: 

Projiciunt  corpus  cur  muliebre  foras  ? 
Hoc  si  tu  qumras,  facilis  responsio  danda 
est : 

Corpora  non  curant  mortua,  viva 
petunt. 


ADDITIONAL  LEGISLATION. 


485 


that  Cardinal  Pole,  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  1556,  forbade 
the  withdrawal  of  any  one  from  the  mysteries  and  functions  of  the 
altar,  under  pain  of  the  law.1 

Notwithstanding  all  this  legislation,  royal,  parliamentary,  and 
ecclesiastical,  the  question  refused  to  settle  itself,  and  the  Convocation 
which  assembled  on  the  1st  of  January,  1557,  was  obliged  to  publish 
an  elaborate  series  of  articles,  which  demonstrated  that  previous 
enactments  had  either  not  been  properly  observed  or  that  they  had 
failed  in  effecting  their  purpose.  Thus  the  prohibition  of  marriage 
to  those  in  priests’  orders  was  formally  renewed.  Such  of  the  mar¬ 
ried  clergy,  who  had  undergone  penance  and  had  been  restored,  as 
still  persisted  in  holding  intercourse  with  their  separated  wives,  were 
to  be  deprived  irrevocably  of  their  office,  and  only  to  be  admitted  to 
lay  communion — thus  reversing  the  policy  of  Cardinal  Pole’s  injunc¬ 
tions.  As  all  priests  who  had  been  married  were  obnoxious  to  the 
people,  they  were  to  be  removed  from  the  priesthood;  or,  at>  least, 
on  account  of  the  scarcity  of  ministers,  to  act  only  as  curates,  and 
to  be  incapable  of  holding  benefices  until  a  thorough  course  of  pen¬ 
ance  should  have  washed  away  their  sins.  Even  then,  in  no  case 
were  they  to  officiate  in  the  dioceses  wherein  they  had  been  married, 
but  wTere  to  be  removed  to  a  distance  of  at  least  sixty  miles,  and 
if  detected  in  any  intercourse  with  their  wives,  they  were  to  incur 
severe  punishment,  a  single  interchange  of  words  being  sufficient  to 
call  down  the  penalty.  To  insure  the  observance  of  these  rules,  all 
synods  were  directed  to  make  special  inquiry  into  the  lives  of  these 
unfortunates,  who  were  thus  to  exist  under  a  perpetual  surveillance, 
at  the  mercy  of  inimical  spies  and  informers.2  This  may,  perhaps, 
be  considered  a  moderate  expiation  for  men  who,  in  those  days  of 
fierce  religious  convictions,  possessed  that  flexibility  of  faith  which 
enabled  them  to  change  their  belief  with  every  dynastic  accident. 

If  the  rigid  rules  now  introduced  were  successful  in  nothing  else, 


1  “  That  none  of  those  priests  that 
were,  under  the  pretence  of  lawfull 
matrimony,  married,  and  now  recon¬ 
ciled,  do  privilie  resorte  to  their  pre¬ 
tensed  wives,  or  suffer  the  same  to 
resorte  unto  them.  And  that  those 
priests  do  in  no  wise  henceforth  with- 
drawe  themselves  from  the  mynisterie 
and  office  of  priesthodde  under  the 
paine  of  the  lawes  ” — Pole’s  Injunc¬ 
tions  in  Diocese  of  Gloucester  (Wil¬ 
kins  IV.  146). 


2  Wilkins  IV.  157.  Thus  in  the 
visitation  of  the  diocese  of  Lincoln, 
the  vicar  of  Spaldwick  was  presented 
for  scandalizing  his  flock  by  carrying 
in  his  arms  his  child  by  a  wife  from 
whom  he  had  been  separated.  At  the 
same  time  a  priest  of  Caisho  named 
Nix  was  subjected  to  penance  for  con¬ 
sorting  with  his  former  wife,  but  was 
permitted  to  resume  his  functions  — 
Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  III.  293. 


486 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


they  at  all  events  succeeded  in  restoring  the  old  troubles  with  the 
old  canons.  Denied  the  lawful  gratification  of  human  instincts,  the 
clergy  immediately  returned  to  the  habits  which  had  acquired  for 
them  so  much  odium  in  times  past,  and  the  rulers  of  the  church  at 
once  found  themselves  embarked  in  the  sempiternal  struggle  with 
immorality  in  all  its  shapes  and  disguises.  If  the  scandalous  chron¬ 
icles  of  the  period  be  worthy  of  credit,  neither  Gardiner  nor  Bonner, 
nor  other  active  promoters  of  the  canons,  were  without  the  visible 
evidences  of  the  frailty  of  the  flesh ; 1  and  though  they  were  above 
the  reach  of  correction,  the  minor  clergy  were  not  so  fortunate.  The 
Convocation  of  1557,  which  issued  the  stringent  regulations  just 
quoted,  was  also  obliged  to  promulgate  articles  concerning  the  resi¬ 
dence  of  women  with  priests,  and  the  punishment  of  licentiousness, 
similar  to  those  which  we  have  seen  reproduced  so  regularly  for  ten 
centuries.  Cardinal  Pole,  too,  in  his  visitation  of  the  same  year, 
directed  inquiries  to  be  made  on  these  points  in  a  manner  which 
shows  that  they  were  existing,  and  not  merely  anticipated  evils.2 

Fortunately  for  the  character  of  the  Anglican  clergy,  the  reign 
of  reaction  was  short.  On  the  17th  of  November,  1558,  Queen 
Mary  closed  her  unhappy  life,  and  Cardinal  Pole  followed  her  within 
sixteen  hours.  The  Marian  persecution  had  been  long  enough  and 
sharp  enough  to  give  to  heresy  all  the  attractions  of  martyrdom, 
thus  increasing  its  fervor  and  enlarging  its  circle  of  earnest  disciples ; 
and  the  sudden  termination  of  that  persecution,  before  it  had  time 
to  accomplish  its  work  of  extirpation,  left  the  reformers  more  zealous 
and  dangerous  than  ever.  Heresy  had  likewise  been  favored  by  the 
discontent  of  the  people  arising  from  the  disastrous  and  expensive 
war  with  France,  which  aided  the  improvident  restoration  of  the 
church  lands  in  impoverishing  the  exchequer  and  in  rendering  neces¬ 
sary  heavy  subsidies  from  the  nation,  repaid  only  by  cruelty  and 
misfortune.  Dread  of  Spanish  influence  also  had  a  firm  hold  of  the 
imagination  of  the  masses,  while  the  church  itself  was  especially 
unpopular,  as  the  conviction  was  general  that  the  ill-success  of  Mary’s 
administration  was  attributable  to  the  control  exercised  by  ecclesias¬ 
tics  over  the  public  affairs.  Under  such  auspices,  the  royal  power 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  princess  who,  though  by  nature  leaning 


1  Strype’s  Eccles.  Memor.  III.  111-12. 

2  Wilkins  IY.  169. 


487 


ELIZABETH’S  HESITATION. 

to  the  Catholic  faith  and  disposed  to  tread  in  the  footsteps  of  her 
father,  was  yet  placed  by  the  circumstances  of  her  birth  in  implac¬ 
able  hostility  to  Rome,  and  who  held  her  throne  only  on  the  tenure 
of  waging  eternal  warfare  with  reaction.  The  reformers  felt  that 
the  doom  of  Catholicism  was  sealed.  Emerging  from  their  hiding- 
places  and  hastening  back  from  exile,  the  religious  refugees  proceeded 
at  once  to  practise  the  rites  of  Edward  VI.  Elizabeth,  however, 
after  ordering  some  changes  in  the  Roman  observances,  forbade,  on 
the  27th  of  December,  all  further  innovations  until  the  meeting  of 
Parliament,  which  was  convoked  for  January  23,  1559. 

Parliament  assembled  on  the  appointed  day  and  sat  until  the  8th 
of  May.  It  at  once  passed  acts  resuming  the  ecclesiastical  crown 
lands  and  restoring  the  royal  supremacy  in  ecclesiastical  matters, 
and  it  repealed  all  of  Mary’s  legislation  concerning  the  power  of  the 
papacy.  Several  other  bills  were  adopted  modifying  the  religion  of 
the  kingdom,  with  a  view  of  discovering  some  middle  term  which 
should  unite  the  people  in  a  common  form  of  belief  and  worship.1 
Anxious  to  avoid  all  extremes,  it  negatived  the  measures  introduced 
by  the  ardent  friends  of  the  Reformation,  and  among  the  unsuccess¬ 
ful  attempts  was  one  which  proposed  to  restore  all  priests  who  had 
been  deprived  on  account  of  marriage.  This,  indeed,  was  laid  aside 
by  the  special  command  of  the  queen  herself.2 

The  question  of  clerical  marriage  was  thus  left  in  a  most  perplexed 
and  unsatisfactory  condition.  The  Six  Articles  had  been  repealed 
by  Edward  VI.,  and  had  been  virtually  revived  by  Mary  ;  but  Mary’s 
efforts  had  been  to  restore  the  independent  jurisdiction  of  the  church, 
and  she  had  therefore  not  continued  to  regard  the  Six  Articles  as  in 
force,  the  canons  of  synods,  and  the  legatine  constitutions  of  Pole 
being  the  law  of  her  ecclesiastical  establishment.  This  was  now 
all  swept  away,  a  statute  to  fill  the  void  was  refused,  and  men  were 
left  to  draw  their  own  deductions  and  act  at  their  own  peril.  Eliza¬ 
beth  refused  the  sanction  of  law  to  sacerdotal  marriage,  and  would 
not  restore  the  deprived  priests,  yet  she  did  not  enforce  any  prohibi¬ 
tory  regulations,  and  even  promoted  many  married  men.  Dr.  Parker, 
the  religious  adviser  of  Ann  Boleyn,  who  had  left  him  in  charge  of 
her  daughter’s  spiritual  education,  was  married,  and  one  of  Eliza¬ 
beth’s  earliest  acts  was  to  nominate  him  for  the  vacant  primacy  of 


1  1  Eliz.  c.  1,  2,  4  (Pari.  Hist.  I.  646-7G). 

2  Burnet,  II.  38G-95. 


488 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


Canterbury,  which  after  long  resistance  he  was  forced  to  accept. 
The  uncertainty  of  the  situation  and  the  anxiety  of  those  interested 
are  well  illustrated  by  a  letter  to  Dr.  Parker,  dated  April  30th,  just 
before  the  rising  of  Parliament,  from  Dr.  Sandys,  afterwards  Bishop 
of  Worcester:  “  The  bill  is  in  hand  to  restore  men  to  their  livings; 
how  it  will  speed  I  know  not  .  .  .  Nihil  est  statutum  de  conjugio 
sacerdotum,  sed  tanquam  relictum  in  medio.  Lever  was  married 
now  of  late.  The  queen’s  majesty  will  wink  at  it,  but  not  stablish 
it  by  law,  which  is  nothing  else  but  to  bastard  our  children.”1  In 
this,  Dr.  Sandys  spoke  nothing  but  truth,  and  those  who  were  mar¬ 
ried  were  obliged  formally  to  have  their  children  legitimated,  as  even 
Dr.  Parker  found  it  necessary  to  do  this  in  the  case  of  his  son 
Matthew.2 

At  length  Elizabeth  made  up  her  mind,  and  in  the  exercise  of  her 
royal  supremacy  she  asked  for  no  act  of  Parliament  to  confirm  her 
decree.  Archbishop  Parker  has  the  credit  of  being  the  most  efficient 
agent  in  overcoming  her  repugnance  to  the  measure,  and  the  ungra¬ 
cious  manner  in  which  she  finally  accorded  the  permission  shows  how 
strong  were  the  prejudices  which  he  had  to  encounter.  In  June, 
1559,  she  issued  a  series  of  “Injunctions  to  the  Clergy  and  Laity” 
which  restored  the  national  religion  to  nearly  the  same  position  as 
that  adopted  by  Edward  VI.,  and  it  is  curious  to  observe  that  when 
she  comes  to  speak  of  sacerdotal  matrimony,  she  carefully  avoids  the 
responsibility  of  sanctioning  it  herself,  but  assumes  that  the  law  of 
Edward  is  still  in  force.  All  that  she  does,  therefore,  is  to  surround 
it  with  such  limitations  and  restrictions  as  shall  prevent  its  abuse, 
and  although  this  form  had  perhaps  the  advantage  of  establishing 


1  Parker’s  Correspondence,  p.  66. — 
Sanders  does  not  fail  to  make  the  most 
of  this  refusal  to  legalize  priestly  mar¬ 
riage  by  act  of  Parliament,  and  of  the 
hesitation  which  rendered  the  final 
decision  a  mere  toleration  and  not  an 
approval.  “  Clerus  enim  in  Anglia 
novus,  partim  ex  apostatis  nostris,  par- 
tim  ex  hominibus  mere  laicis  factus,  ut 
est  valde  spiritualis,  primo  quoque 
tempore  de  nuptiis  cogitahat ;  multum- 
que  sategit,  ut  conjugia  Episcoporum 
Canonicorum  et  ca?terorum  ministorum 
legibus  approbarentur ;  sed  obtineri  non 
potuit,  quia  vel  turpe  videbatur  minis- 
terio,  vel  reipublicae  perniciosum.  Edo- 
vardus  quidem  sextus  omnes  canonicas 
et  humanas  prohihitiones  circa  cleri- 
corum  aut  etiam  religiosorum  connuhia 
lege  comitiali  seu  parlamentaria  sustu- 


lerat ;  earn  legem  mox  ahrogavit  Maria, 
nunc  restituendam  ac  renovandam 
clamitant  isti,  sed  non  exaudiuntur: 
omnes  tamen  per  totum  fere  regnum 
quia  de  dono  [castitatis]  (ut  loquuntur) 
non  sunt  certi,  non  secundum  leges,  sed 
secundum  indulgentiam ;  vel  (ut  .  illi 
dicunt)  secundum  scripturas,  sed  ad 
libidinem  suam  compositas,  ineunt 
prima,  secunda,  vel  etiam  tertia  con¬ 
jugia,  contra  canones  et  morem  non 
solum  Latinorum  sed  etiam  Grsecorum ; 
et  prole  ita  abundant,  ut  ad  illarn  susten- 
tandam  opibusque  augendam,  et  popu- 
lus  supra  modum  gravetur,  et  ipsi  misere 
beneficia  sua  expilent.” — De  Schismate 
Anglicano,  Lib.  III.  (Ingoldstatii, 
1586,  p.  299). 

2  Strype’s  Annals,  I.  81. 


489 


ELIZABETH’S  INJUNCTIONS. 

the  legality  of  all  preexisting  marriages,  yet  the  regulations  pro¬ 
mulgated  were  degrading  in  the  highest  degree,  and  the  reason 
assigned  for  permitting  it  could  only  be  regarded  as  affixing  a  stigma 
on  every  pastor  who  confessed  the  weakness  of  his  flesh  by  seeking 
a  wife.1 

From  the  temper  of  these  regulations  it  is  manifest  that  if  Eliza¬ 
beth  yielded  to  the  advice  of  her  counsellors  and  to  the  pressure  of 
the  times,  she  did  not  give  up  her  private  convictions  or  prejudices, 
and  that  she  desired  to  make  the  marriage  of  her  clergy  as  unpopular 
and  disagreeable  as  possible.  It  was  probably  for  the  purpose  of 
meeting  her  objections  that  the  order  for  a  return  of  the  clergy, 
issued  by  Archbishop  Parker,  October  1st,  1561,  contained  in  the 
blanks  issued  the  unusual  entry  classifying  them  as  married  or  un¬ 
married,2  and  Strype  informs  us  that  in  the  Archdeaconry  of  Lon¬ 
don  the  returns  show  the  ministry  for  the  most  part  to  have  been 
filled  with  married  men.3  Even  the  haughty  spirit  of  the  Tudor, 


1  Royal  Injunctions  of  1559,  Art. 
xxix.  u  Although  there  be  no  prohi¬ 
bition  by  the  word  of  God,  nor  any 
example  of  the  primitive  church,  hut 
that  the  priests  and  ministers  of  the 
church  may  lawfully,  for  the  avoiding 
of  fornication,  have  an  honest  and 
sober  wife,  and  that  for  the  same  pur¬ 
pose  the  same  was  by  act  of  Parliament 
in  the  time  of  our  dear  brother  King 
Edward  the  Sixth  made  lawful,  where¬ 
upon  a  great  number  of  the  clergy  of 
this  realm  were  married  and  so  continue ; 
yet,  because  there  hath  grown  offence 
and  some  slander  to  the  church,  by 
lack  of  discreet  and  sober  behavior  in 
many  ministers  of  the  church,  both  in 
chusing  of  their  wives  and  undiscreet 
living  with  them,  the  remedy  whereof 
is  necessary  to  be  sought ;  it  is  thought 
therefore  very  necessary  that  no  man¬ 
ner  of  priest  or  deacon  shall  hereafter 
take  to  his  wife  any  manner  of  woman 
without  the  advice  and  allowance  first 
had  upon  good  examination  by  the 
bishop  of  the  same  diocese  and  two 
justices  of  the  peace  of  the  same  shire 
dwelling  next  to  the  place  where  the 
same  woman  hath  made  her  most  abode 
before  her  marriage ;  nor  without  the 
goodwill  of  the  parents  of  the  said 
woman  if  she  have  any  living,  or  two 
of  the  next  of  her  kinsfolks,  or  for  lack 
of  the  knowledge  of  such,  of  her  master 
or  mistress  where  she  serveth.  And 
before  she  shall  be  contracted  in  any 


place,  he  shall  make  a  good  and  certain 
proof  thereof  to  the  minister  or  to  the 
congregation  assembled  for  that  pur¬ 
pose,  which  shall  be  upon  some  holy- 
day  where  divers  may  be  present.  And 
if  any  shall  do  otherwise,  that  then 
they  shall  not  be  permitted  to  minister 
either  the  word  or  the  sacraments  of 
the  church,  nor  shall  be  capable  of  any 
ecclesiastical  benefice.  And  for  the 
marriages  of  any  bishops,  the  same 
shall  be  allowed  and  approved  by  the 
metropolitan  of  the  province  and  also 
by  such  commissioners  as  the  Queen’s 
Majesty  thereunto  shall  appoint.  And 
if  any  master  or  dean  or  any  head  of 
any  college  shall  purpose  to  marry,  the 
same  shall  not  be  allowed  but  by  such 
to  whom  the  visitation  of  the  same 
doth  properly  belong,  who  shall  in  any 
wise  provide  that  the  same  turn  not  to 
the  hindrance  of  their  house” — (Wil¬ 
kins  IV.  186). 

See  also  a  letter  of  Theodore  Beza, 
Zurich  Letters,  p.  247  (Parker  Soc. 
Publications). 

2  Cardwell’s  Documentary  Annals, 
I.  309. 

3  Strype’s  Parker,  Book  n.  chap.  v. 
— In  1569  the  returns  for  the  Arch¬ 
deaconry  of  Canterbury  show  135  mar¬ 
ried  clergymen  to  34  licensed  preachers, 
and  there  is  no  mention  of  any  unmar¬ 
ried  men  (lb.  in.  xxiv.). 


490 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


thus,,  could  not  restrain  the  progress  which  had  now  fairly  set  in. 
Those  around  her  who  controlled  the  public  affairs  were  all  committed 
to  the  Reformation,  and  were  resolved  that  every  point  gained  should 
be  made  secure.  When,  therefore,  in  1563,  there  was  published  a 
recension  of  the  Forty-two  Articles  issued  by  Edward  VI.  in  1552, 
resulting  in  the  well-known  Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of 
England,  care  was  taken  that  the  one  relating  to  the  liberty  of  mar¬ 
riage  should  be  made  more  emphatic  than  before.  Not  content  with 
the  simple  proposition  of  the  original  that  “  Bishops,  priests,  and 
deacons  are  not  commanded  by  God’s  law’  either  to  vow  the  estate 
of  a  single  life,  or  to  abstain  from  marriage,”  the  emphatic  corollary 
w*as  added,  “  Therefore  it  is  lawful  for  them  as  for  all  other  Christian 
men  to  marry  at  their  own  discretion,  as  they  shall  judge  the  same 
to  serve  better  to  Godliness”1 — such  as  wre  find  it  preserved  to  the 
present  day.  This  specific  declaration  in  a  special  article  marks  the 
necessity  which  was  felt  to  place  the  matter  beyond  controversy,  as 
a  rule  of  practice.  The  Articles  on  Justification  and  Works  of 
Supererogation  (Arts.  xi.  and  xix.)  would  have  sufficed,  so  far  as 
principle  was  concerned. 

This  was  not  an  empty  form.  Not  only  the  right  to  marry  at 
their  own  discretion,  thus  expressly  declared,  did  much  to  relieve 
them  from  the  degrading  conditions  laid  dovm  by  the  queen,  but  the 
revival  and  strengthening  of  the  article  marked  a  victory  gained  over 
the  reaction.  When,  in  1559,  the  queen  appointed  a  commission  to 
visit  all  the  churches  of  England  and  enforce  compliance  with  the 
order  of  things  then  existing,  the  articles  prepared  for  its  guidance 
enjoin  no  investigation  into  opinions  respecting  priestly  marriage, 
showing  that  to  be  an  open  question,  concerning  which  every  man 
might  hold  his  private  belief.2  After  the  adoption  of  the  Thirty-nine 


1  In  the  English  version,  as  given  by 
Burnet  (Yol.  II.  Append.  217),  there 
are  42  articles,  of  which  this  is  the  31st. 
In  the  Latin  edition  (Wilkins  IV.  236), 
there  are  hut  39  articles,  this  being  the 
32d,  which  is  the  arrangement  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  standard  of  the  Anglican 
church. 

2  Wilkins  IV.  189-91. — This  com¬ 
mission  was  the  commencement  of  the 
Court  of  High  Commission,  which 
played  so  lamentable  a  part  in  the 
troubles  of  the  succeeding  reigns.  The 
result  of  its  visitation  in  1559  shows 


how  little  real  conviction  existed  among 
the  clergy  who  had  been  exposed  to  the 
capricious  persecutions  of  alternating 
rulers.  Out  of  9400  beneficiaries  in 
England  under  Mary,  but  14  bishops, 
6  abbots,  12  deans,  12  archdeacons,  15 
heads  of  colleges,  50  prebendaries,  and 
80  rectors  of  parishes  had  abandoned 
their  preferment  on  account  of  Pro¬ 
testantism  (Burnet  Vol.  II.  Append. 
217),  and  of  these  it  is  fair  to  assume 
that  the  higher  dignitaries  at  least  had 
not  been  allowed  to  retain  their  posi¬ 
tions. 


ELIZABETH’S  REPUGNANCE.  491 

Articles,  however,  this  latitude  was  no  longer  allowed.  In  1567 
Archbishop  Parker’s  articles  of  instruction  for  the  visitation  of  that 
year  enumerate,  among  the  heretical  doctrines  to  he  inquired  after, 
the  assertion  that  the  Word  of  God  commands  abstinence  from  mar¬ 
riage  on  the  part  of  ministers  of  the  church.1  As  we  shall  see,  it 
was  about  the  same  time  that  the  council  of  Trent  likewise  erected 
the  question  of  clerical  marriage  into  a  point  of  belief. 

Yet  Elizabeth  never  overcame  her  repugnance  to  the  marriage  of 
the  clergy,  nor  is  it,  perhaps,  to  be  wondered  at  when  we  consider 
the  contempt  in  which  she  held  the  church  of  which  she  was  the 
head,2  and  her  general  aversion  to  sanctioning  in  others  the  matri¬ 
mony  which  she  was  herself  always  toying  with  and  never  contract¬ 
ing.  When  she  made  her  favorites  of  both  sexes  suffer  for  any 
legalized  indiscretions  of  the  kind,  it  is  scarcely  surprising  that  she 
always  looked  with  disfavor  on  those  of  the  clergy  who  availed  them¬ 
selves  of  the  privilege  which  circumstances  had  extorted  from  her, 
and  which  she  would  fain  have  withheld.  When  Archbishop  Parker 
ventured  to  remonstrate  with  her  on  her  popish  tendencies,  she 
sharply  told  him  that  “  she  repented  of  having  made  any  married 
bishops.”  This  was  a  cutting  rejoinder,  but  even  more  pointed  was 
the  insolence  from  which  his  life-long  services  could  not  protect  his 
wife.  The  first  time  the  queen  visited  the  archiepiscopal  palace,  on 
her  departure  she  turned  to  thank  Mrs.  Parker: — “And  you — 
madam  I  may  not  call  you,  mistress  I  am  ashamed  to  call  you,  so  I 
know  not  wThat  to  call  you — but,  howsoever,  I  thank  you.”3  So  in 
Ipswich,  in  August,  1561,  she  found  great  fault  with  the  marriage 
of  the  clergy,  and  especially  with  the  number  of  wives  and  children 
in  cathedrals  and  colleges — a  feeling  possibly  justified  by  occasional 
disorders  not  unlikely  to  occur.  In  1563  we  find  Sir  John  Bourne 
complaining  to  the  Privy  Council  that  the  Dean  and  Chapter  of 
Worcester  had  broken  up  the  large  organ,  the  pride  of  the  cathe¬ 
dral,  which  had  cost  £200 ;  the  metal  pipes  whereof  wTere  melted  into 
dishes  and  divided  among  the  wives  of  the  prebendaries  and  the  case 
used  to  make  bedsteads  for  them ;  the  copes  and  ornaments,  he  added, 


1  Wilkins  IY.  253. — Strype’s  Parker, 
App.  liii. 

2  In  1576  she  declared  to  Grindal, 
then  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  “that 
it  was  good  for  the  church  to  have  few 
preachers,  and  that  three  or  four  might 
suffice  for  a  county  ;  and  that  the  read¬ 


ing  of  the  Homilies  to  the  people  was 
enough.’’ — Strype’s  Life  of  Grindal,  p. 
221. — See  also  Strype’s  Parker,  Book 
II.  chap.  xx. 

3  Strickland,  Life  of  Queen  Eliza¬ 
beth,  Chap.  iv. 


492 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


would  likewise  have  been  distributed  had  not  some  of  the  unmarried 
men  prevented  it,  “and  as  by  their  Habit  and  Apparel  you  might 
know  the  Priests  wives,  and  by  their  Gate  in  the  Market  and  the 
Streets  from  an  hundred  other  Women:  so  in  the  Congregation  and 
Cathedral  Church  they  were  easy  to  be  known  by  placing  themselves 
above  all  other  of  the  most  ancient  and  honest  Calling  of  the  said 
City.”1  There  was  no  lack  of  persons  to  pour  such  stories  into  the 
queen’s  ear,  and,  with  her  well-known  tendencies,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  her  counsellors  found  it  difficult  to  restrain  her  to  the  simple 
order  which  she  issued  from  Ipswich,  declaring  “  that  no  manner  of 
person,  being  either  the  head  or  member  of  any  college  or  cathedral 
church  within  this  realm,  shall,  from  the  time  of  the  notification 
hereof  in  the  same  college,  have,  or  be  permitted  to  have,  within  the 
precinct  of  any  such  college,  his  wife,  or  other  woman,  to  abide  and 
dwell  in  the  same,  or  to  frequent  and  haunt  any  lodging  within  the 
same  college,  upon  pain  that  whosoever  shall  do  to  the  contrary  shall 
forfeit  all  ecclesiastical  promotions  in  any  cathedral  or  collegiate 
church  within  this  realm.”  Burghley,  in  sending  this  royal  man¬ 
date  to  Parker,  remarks,  “  Her  Majesty  continueth  very  evil  affected 
to  the  state  of  matrimony  in  the  clergy.  And  if  [I]  were  not 
therein  very  stiff,  her  Majesty  would  openly  and  utterly  condemn 
and  forbid  it.  In  the  end,  for  her  satisfaction,  this  injunction  now 
sent  to  your  Grace  is  devised.  The  good  order  thereof  shall  do  no 
harm.  I  have  devised  to  send  it  in  this  sort  to  your  Grace  for  your 
province;  and  to  the  Archbishop  of  York  for  his;  so  as  it  shall  not 
be  promulged  to  be  popular.” 2  It  is  doubtless  to  this  occurrence  that 
we  may  attribute  the  last  relic  of  clerical  celibacy  enforced  among 
Protestants,  that  of  the  Fellows  of  the  English  Universities. 

This  injunction  of  Queen  Elizabeth  caused  no  little  excitement. 
Though  Burghley  had  prudently  endeavored  to  prevent  its  becoming 
“popular,”  yet  Cox,  Bishop  of  Ely,  in  remonstrating  against  its 
cruelty  to  those  whom  it  affected  in  his  cathedral  seat,  shows  that  it 
was  speedily  known  to  all  men,  and  that  it  gave  exceeding  comfort 
to  the  reactionaries — “What  rejoicing  and  jeering  the  adversaries 
make  !  How  the  godly  ministers  are  discouraged,  I  will  pass  over.”3 
In  the  Universities,  where  crowds  of  young  men  were  collected,  there 
might  be  some  colorable  excuse  for  the  regulation,  but  in  the  splendid 


1  Strype’s  Annals,  I.  364-5. 

2  Parker’s  Correspondence,  pp.  146-8. 


3  Ibid.  p.  152. 


493 


ELIZABETH’S  REPUGNANCE. 

and  spacious  buildings  connected  with  the  cathedrals  some  milder 
remedy  might  easily  have  been  found,  and  the  mandate  was  particu¬ 
larly  unpalatable  to  married  bishops.  Parker  himself,  who  was  indi¬ 
vidually  interested  in  the  matter,  made  a  personal  appeal  to  the 
queen,  the  result  of  which  was  to  wound  him  deeply,  as  well  as  to 
show  him  how  extreme  were  her  prejudices  on  the  subject.  He 
pours  forth  his  feelings  in  a  letter  to  Burghley  describing  the  inter¬ 
view — “  I  wras  in  an  horror  to  hear  such  words  to  come  from  her 
mild  nature  and  Christianly  learned  conscience,  as  she  spake  of 
God’s  holy  ordinance  and  institution  of  matrimony.  I  marvel  that 
our  states  in  that  behalf  cannot  please  her  Highness,  which  we  doubt 
nothing  at  all  to  please  God’s  sacred  Majesty.”  He  deplores  the 
effect  which  it  must  produce  on  the  people — “  We  alone  of  our  time 
openly  brought  in  hatred,  shamed  and  traduced  before  the  malicious 
and  ignorant  people,  as  beasts  without  knowledge  to  Godward,  in 
using  this  liberty  of  his  word,  as  men  of  effrenate  intemperency, 
without  discretion  or  any  godly  disposition  worthy  to  serve  in  our 
state.  Insomuch  that  the  queen’s  Highness  expressed  to  me  a 
repentance  that  we  were  thus  appointed  in  office,  wishing  it  had  been 
otherwise.”  The  interview  had  evidently  been  stormy,  and  Parker 
had  been  made  to  feel  the  full  force  of  Elizabeth’s  perverseness — 
“  I  have  neither  joy  of  house,  land,  or  name,  so  abased  by  my  nat¬ 
ural  sovereign  good  lady;  for  whose  service  and  honor  I  would  not 
think  it  cost  to  spend  my  life” — and  he  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
threaten  resistance — “  I  would  be  sorry  that  the  clergy  should  have 
cause  to  show  disobedience,  with  oportet  Deo  obedire  magis  quam 
hominibus.  And  what  instillers  soever  there  be,  there  be  enough 
of  this  contemned  flock,  which  will  not  shrink  to  offer  their  blood  to 
the  defence  of  Christ’s  verity,  if  it  be  either  openly  impugned  or 
secretly  suggilled.”1  Evidently,  before  Parker  could  have  been 
driven  to  such  scarcely  covered  threats,  there  must  have  been  an 
intimation  by  the  angry  queen  that  she  would  recall  the  permission 
to  marry,  which,  in  the  existing  state  of  the  law,  she  could  readily 
have  done. 

The  same  spirit  which  rendered  the  marriage  of  a  pastor  dependent 
on  the  approbation  of  the  neighboring  squires  caused  the  retention 
of  ancient  rules,  which  prove  the  profound  distrust  still  entertained 
as  to  the  discretion  and  morality  of  the  clergy,  and  the  difficulty 


1  Parker’s  Correspondence,  pp.  156-8. 


494 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


with  which  the  Anglican  church  threw  off  the  traditions  of  Catholi¬ 
cism.  Thus,  even  in  1571,  Grindal,  Archbishop  of  York,  promul¬ 
gates  a  modification  of  the  canon  of  Nicsea,  forbidding  the  residence 
with  unmarried  ministers  of  women  under  the  age  of  sixty,  except 
relatives  closely  connected  by  blood.1  Indeed,  in  some  remote 
corners  of  the  kingdom  the  old  license  was  kept  up.  Archbishop 
Parker,  about  the  year  1565,  in  speaking  of  the  diocese  of  Bangor, 
states — “I  hear  that  diocese  to  be  much  out  of  order,  both  having 
no  preaching  there  and  pensionary  concubinary  openly  continued, 
notwithstanding  liberty  of  marriage  granted.”2  It  evidently  required 
time  to  accustom  the  clergy  to  the  substitution  of  the  new  privileges 
for  the  old. 

Although  sacerdotal  marriage  was  now  fully  sanctioned  by  the 
organic  canon  law  of  the  church,  yet  it  was  still  exposed  to  serious 
impediments  of  a  worldly  character.  When  thus  frowned  upon  by 
her  who  was  in  reality,  if  not  in  name,  Supreme  Head  of  the  church ; 
when  the  wife  of  the  primate  himself  could  be  exposed  to  such  indelible 
impertinence ;  when  the  marriage  of  every  unfortunate  parson  was 
subjected  to  degrading  conditions,  and  when  it  was  assumed  that  his 
bride  must  be  a  woman  at  service,  the  influences  affecting  the  matri¬ 
monial  alliances  of  the  clergy  must  have  been  of  the  worst  descrip¬ 
tion.  The  higher  classes  of  society  would  naturally  model  their 
opinions  on  those  of  the  sovereign,  while  the  lower  orders  had  not  as 
yet  shaken  off  the  prejudices  in  favor  of  celibacy,  implanted  in  them 
by  the  custom  of  centuries.  Making  due  allowance  for  polemical 
bitterness,  there  is  therefore  no  doubt  much  truth  in  the  sarcastic 
account  which  Sanders  gives  of  the  wives  of  the  Elizabethan  clergy. 
Taking  advantage  of  the  refusal  of  Parliament  to  formally  legalize 
such  marriages — a  refusal  which  could  not  but  greatly  affect  the 
minds  of  the  people — he  assumes  that  the  wives  were  concubines 
and  the  children  illegitimate  in  the  eyes  of  the  law ;  consequently 
decent  women  refused  to  undergo  the  obloquy  attached  to  a  union 
with  a  minister  of  the  church,  who  was  therefore  forced  to  take  as 
his  spouse  any  one  who  would  consent  to  accept  him.  The  wives  of 
prelates  were  ostracized ;  not  received  at  court,  and  sharing  in  no 
way  the  dignities  of  their  husbands,  they  were  kept  closely  at  home 
for  the  mere  gratification  of  animal  passion.  The  members  of  uni¬ 
versities  had  been  wholly  unsuccessful  in  their  efforts  to  obtain  the 


1  Wilkins  IV.  269. 


2  Parker’s  Correspondence,  p.  259. 


DISREPUTE  OF  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


495 


same  license,  which  was  only  granted  to  the  heads  of  colleges,  under 
condition  that  their  wives  should  reside  elsewhere,  and  should  rarely 
pollute  with  their  presence  the  learned  precincts.1 

The  accuracy  of  this  sarcastic  description  is  confirmed  by  a  state¬ 
ment  made  by  Percival  Wibum  for  the  benefit  of  his  friends  in 
Zurich,  subsequent  to  the  adoption  of  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  He 
asserts  that  “The  marriage  of  priests  was  counted  unlawful  in  the 
times  of  queen  Mary,  and  was  also  forbidden  by  a  public  statute  of 
the  realm,  which  is  also  in  force  at  this  day ;  although  by  permission 
of  queen  Elizabeth  clergymen  may  have  their  wives,  provided  only 
they  marry  by  the  advice  and  assent  of  the  bishop  and  two  justices 
of  the  peace,  as  they  call  them.  The  lords  bishops  are  forbidden  to 
have  their  wives  with  them  in  their  palaces ;  as  are  also  the  deans, 
canons,  presbyters,  and  other  ministers  of  the  church,  within  colleges, 
or  the  precincts  of  cathedral  churches.”2  It  is  not  a  little  curious, 


1  Qui  autem  istis  darent  Alias  suas, 
ne  protestantes  quidem  fere  invenieban- 
tur,  nedum  Catholici :  primum  quia 
existimant  id  esse  per  se  infame,  ut  sint 
vel  dicantur  uxores  presbyterorum. 
Secundo,  quia  juxta  leges  regni  non 
sunt  adhuc  vera  sed  adulterina  con- 
jugia,  ac  proinde  proles  illegitima. 
Tertio  quia  non  accrescit  his  uxoribus 
aut  liberis  suis  ex  maritorum  loco  aut 
honore  in  Republica  ulla  dignitas  aut 
existimatio,  quod  est  contra  naturam 
veri  matrimonii.  Non  enim  Archiepis- 
copus,  Episcopus,aliusvehodie  prselatus 
in  Anglia  si  sit  conjugatus,  tribuit 
quicquam  ex  eo  honoris  vel  prseemin- 
entia  uxori  suae,  non  magis  quam  si 
esset  ejus  tantum  concubina.  Hinc  sit 
ut  nec  eas  Elizabetha  in  aulam,  nec 
principnm  uxores  in  consortium  ullo 
modo  admittant,  ne  Archiepiscoporum 
quidem  vocatas  conjuges ;  sed  debent 
eas  mariti  domi  continere,  pro  vasis 
tantem  libidinis  aut  necessitatis  suae. 
Quae  istis  ergo  conditionibus,  vel  sum- 
mis  praelatis  conjungerentur,  cum  hon- 
estiores  paucse  aut  nullae  reperiebantur, 
quas  poterant  habere  accipere  fuit 
necesse.  Sed  et  aliis  modis  utcumque 
istorum  hominum  cupiditati  per  magis- 
tratum  civilem  impositum  est  fraenum. 
Nam  et  Collegiorum  alumni  qui  in 
Anglicanis  universitatibus  admodum 
multi  erant,  otioque  ac  saturitate  panis 
abundabant,  ac  admodum  provecti 
aetate  erant,  cupiebant  et  ipsi  habere 


uxores ;  sed  videbatur  inconveniens,  et 
id  privilegii  Collegiorum  tantum  Rec- 
toribus  concessum  est,  cum  hac  tamen 
exceptione,  ut  conjuges  seorsim  plerun- 
que  extra  Collegia  constituant,  rarius- 
que  eas  intromittant. — De  Schismate 
Anglicano  Lib.  III.  (Ingoldstat.  1586, 
p.  300). 

See  also  Florimund.  Raemund.  Histor. 
Memoral.  Lib.  vi.  cap.  xii. 

Of  course  much  allowance  must  be 
made  for  the  statements  of  so  keen  a 
partisan  as  Sanders,  and  one  who  had 
suffered  so  much  from  those  whom  he 
satirized,  yet  he  was  a  man  of  too  much 
shrewdness  to  make  statements  wThich 
his  contemporaries  could  recognize  as 
entirely  destitute  of  foundation. 

Even  to  this  day  the  position  of  the 
wives  of  the  Anglican  prelates  is  made 
a  subject  of  ridicule  by  Catholic  pole¬ 
mics.  A  recent  Italian  tract  entitled 
“  II  Celibato  del  sacerdozio  Cattolico  ” 
remarks  “  Osservate  piuttosto  le  mogli 
de’  vescovi  e  degli  arcivescovi  Angli- 
cani,  tenute  esse  in  conto  di  concubine 
non  hanno  posto  alcuno  nella  civile 
societa.” — Panzini,  Confessione  di  un 
Prigioniero,  p.  472. 

2  Zurich  Letters,  Second  Series,  p. 
359  (Parker  Society,  1845).  Wiburn 
was  deprived  for  non-conformity  in 
1564,  so  that  this  must  have  been 
written  subsequently  (Strype’s  Life  of 
Grindal,  p.  98). 


496 


THE  ANGLICAN  CHURCH. 


indeed,  to  observe  that  in  spite  of  the  formal  declaration  in  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles,  the  absence  of  a  special  act  of  Parliament  long 
caused  the  question  to  remain  a  doubtful  one  in  the  public  mind. 
As  late  as  July,  1566,  Lawrence  Humphrey  and  Thomas  Sampson, 
two  zealous  Protestants,  in  denouncing  “  some  straws  and  chips  of 
the  popish  religion”  which  still  defaced  the  Anglican  church,  state 
that  “the  marriage  of  the  clergy  is  not  allowed  and  sanctioned  by 
the  public  laws  of  the  kingdom,  but  their  children  are  by  some 
persons  regarded  as  illegitimate;”  in  answer  to  which,  Bishops 
Grindal  and  Horn  rejoined  that  “the  wives  of  the  clergy  are  not 
separated  from  their  husbands,  and  their  marriage  is  esteemed  honor¬ 
able  by  all,  the  papists  always  excepted.”1  The  matter  evidently 
was  still  regarded  as  a  subject  of  controversy,  not  yet  decided 
beyond  appeal ;  and  the  experience  of  the  previous  quarter  of  a 
century  had  accustomed  men  to  too  many  vicissitudes  for  them  to 
feel  safe  with  so  slender  a  guarantee  as  the  Articles  afforded.  The 
Catholics  still  constituted  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  population, 
and  they  scarcely  concealed  their  feelings  towards  the  innovation. 
When  Sir  John  Bourne  quarrelled  with  Dr.  Sandys,  Bishop  of  Wor¬ 
cester,  among  the  formal  articles  of  accusation  which  he  presented  to 
the  Privy  Council  was  the  assertion  that  the  Bishop  in  a  sermon 
had  ridiculed  celibacy  and  had  decried  the  virtue  of  unmarried 
priests.2  The  knight  apparently  believed  that  this  would  be  damag¬ 
ing  to  the  bishop,  and  the  latter  seems  likewise  to  have  thought  so,  for 
in  his  answer  he  emphatically  denied  it,  retorting  that  his  adversary 
was  a  papist  who  had  mass  celebrated  in  his  house  and  who  was  in 
the  habit  of  applying  the  most  opprobrious  epithets  to  the  wives  of 
priests.3  So  when  in  1569  the  Catholics  of  the  North  rose  in  insur¬ 
rection  under  the  Earls  of  Westmoreland  and  Northumberland,  one 
of  the  grievances  of  which  they  complained  was  the  marriage  of  the 


1  Zurich  Letters,  First  Series,  pp. 
164,  179. 

2  u  That,  concerning  Virginity  and 
the  Single  Life,  he  handled  the  case  so 
finely  that  to  his  thinking,  if  he  should 
have  believed  him,  he  could  not  find 
three  good  Virgins  since  Christ’s  time. 
And  that  so  he  left  the  Matter  with  an 
Exhortation  to  all  to  Mary,  Mary. 
Further,  That  he  said  in  that  Sermon 
that  single-living  Men,  that  is  to  say 
unmaried,  and  especially  unmaried 
priests,  lived  naught.  And  that  there 


in  that  City  were  lately  presented  five 
or  six  unmaried  priests  that  kept  five 
or  six  whores  apiece;  though  there  were 
not  above  four  unmaried  priests  in  the 
City  in  all.” — Strype’s  Annals,  I.  349. 

3  “Where  he  alledgeth  that  he  never 
called  Priests  Wives  Whores,  it  is  un¬ 
true.  For  three  "Women  going  through 
his  Park,  wherein  is  a  path  for  footmen, 
he  supposing  they  had  been  Priests 
Wives  called  unto  them,  Ye  shall  not 
come  through  my  Park  aiid  no  such 
Priests  Whores.” — Ibid.  p.  358. 


EFFECTS  ON  THE  ANGLICAN  CLERGY. 


497 


ministers  of  Christ.1  During  the  whole  of  this  transition  period  the 
question  was  evidently  one  which  occupied  largely  the  public  mind, 
and  in  the  diversity  of  opinion  it  was  not  easy  to  see  what  the  ulti¬ 
mate  decision  might  be.  When  an  irrevocable  step  such  as  marriage 
was  legal  only  during  the  pleasure  of  a  capricious  woman,  whose 
assent  was  known  to  have  been  extorted  from  her,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  it  should  be  looked  upon  with  disfavor  by  all  prudent  relatives 
of  women  inclined  to  venture  on  it. 

Such  a  state  of  feeling  could  not  but  react  most  injuriously  on  the 
character  of  the  great  body  of  the  clergy.  It  deprived  them  of  the 
respect  due  to  their  sacred  calling,  and  consequently  reduced  them 
to  the  level  of  such  scant  respect  as  was  accorded  to  them.  How 
long  this  lasted,  and  how  materially  it  degraded  the  ministers  of 
Christ  as  a  body,  cannot  be  questioned  by  any  one  who  recalls  the 
description  of  the  rural  clergy  in  the  brilliant  third  chapter  of 
Macaulay’s  History  of  England.  In  1686  an  author  complains  that 
the  rector  is  an  object  of  contempt  and  ridicule  for  all  above  the  rank 
of  the  neighboring  peasants ;  that  gentle  blood  would  be  held  pol¬ 
luted  by  any  connection  with  the  church,  and  that  girls  of  good 
family  were  taught  with  equal  earnestness  not  to  marry  clergymen, 
nor  to  sacrifice  their  reputation  by  amourous  indiscretions — two  mis¬ 
fortunes  which  were  commonly  regarded  as  equal.2 3 

Thus  eagerly  accepted  and  grudgingly  bestowed,  the  privilege 
of  marriage  established  itself  in  the  Church  of  England  by  con¬ 
nivance  rather  than  as  a  right;  and  the  evil  influences  of  the  preju¬ 
dices  thus  fostered  were  not  extinguished  for  generations. 


1  See  a  tract  published  against  the 
rebels,  attributed  by  Strvpe  to  Sir 

Thomas  Smith,  which  ridicules  the 
advocates  of  celibacy  with  a  vigor 
reminding  us  of  the  Beggars’  Petition. 
— “  This  is  a  quarrel  wholly  like  the  old 
Rebels  Complaint  of  Enclosing  of 
Commons.  Many  of  your  Disordered 
and  evil  disposed  Wives  are  much 
agrieved  that  Priests,  which  were  wont 
to  be  Common  be  now  made  Several. 
Hinc  illaz  lachrymce.  There  is  Grief 
indeed,  and  Truth  it  is,  and  so  shall 

3Tou  find  it.  Few  Women  storm  against 
the  marriage  of  priests,  calling  it  un¬ 
lawful  and  incensing  Men  against  it, 
but  such  as  have  been  Priests  Harlots 
or  fain  would  be.  Content  your  Wives 
yourselves  and  let  Priests  have  their 
own.” — Strype’s  Annals,  1.558. 


2  A  causidico,  medicastro,  ipsaque 
artificum  farragine,  ecclesioe  rector  aut 
vicarius  contemnitur  et  fit  ludibrio. 
Gentis  et  familise  nitor  sacris  ordinibus 
pollutus  censetur:  foeminisque  natalitio 
insignibus  unicum  inculcatur  srepius 
proeceptum,  ne  modestice  naufragium 
faciant,  aut  (quod  idem  auribus  tarn 
delicatulis  sonat)  ne  clerico  se  nuptas  dari 
patiantur. — T.  Wood,  Angliae  Notitia 
(Macaulay’s  Hist.  Engl.  Chap.  nr.). 

Lord  Macaulay  attributes  the  de¬ 
graded  position  of  the  clergy  to  their 
indigence  and  want  of  influence. 
These  causes  doubtless  had  their  effect, 
but  the  peculiar  repugnance  towards 
clerical  marriage  ascribed  to  all  respect¬ 
able  women  had  a  deeper  origin  than 
simply  the  beggarly  stipends  attached 
to  the  majority  of  English  livings. 


32 


XXVII. 


CALVINISM. 


When  John  Calvin  formulated  the  system  of  theology  which  bears 
his  name,  sacerdotal  marriage  had  already  become  recognized  as  one 
of  the  necessary  incidents  of  the  revolt  against  Rome.  That  the 
French  Huguenots  should  accept  it  accordingly  was  therefore  a 
matter  of  course.  Calvin  himself  manifested  his  contempt  for  all 
the  ancient  prejudices  by  marrying,  in  1539,  Xdelette  de  Bure,  the 
widow  of  the  Anabaptist  Jean  Stordeur,  whom  he  had  converted.1 
The  Huguenot  Confession  of  Faith  was  drawn  up  by  him,  and  was 
adopted  by  the  first  national  synod,  held  at  Paris  in  1559.  Of  course 
the  Genevan  views  of  justification  swept  away  all  the  accumulated 
observances  of  sacerdotalism,  and  ascetic  celibacy  shared  the  fate  of 
the  rest.2  The  discipline  of  the  Calvinist  church  with  regard  to 
the  morality  of  its  ministers  was  necessarily  severe.  The  peculiar 
purity  expected  of  a  pastor’s  household  was  shown  by  the  rule  which 
enjoined  any  church  officer  whose  wife  was  convicted  of  adultery  to 


1  Kahlenbeck,  L’Eglise  de  Liege,  p.  [ 
49.  The  stern  and  self-centred  soul 
which  won  for  Idelette  the  hand  of 
Calvin  was  unshaken  to  the  last,  as 
may  be  seen  by  his  curious  account  of 
her  death-bed,  in  a  letter  to  Farel 
(Calvini  Epistolae,  p.  111.  Geneva, 
1617).  His  grief  was  doubtless  sincere, 
but  his  friends  were  able  to  compliment ' 
him  on  his  not  allowing  domestic  af¬ 
fliction  to  interfere  with  his  customary 
routine  of  labor  (Ibid.  p.  1 16). 

2  I  have  not  access  to  the  original, 
hut  quote  the  following  from  Quick’s 
“  Synodicon  in  Gallia  lleformata,” 
London,  1692—“  Art.  xxiv.  ...  We 
do  also  reject  those  means  which  men 
presumed  they  had,  whereby  they 
might  be  redeemed  before  God ;  for ! 
they  derogate  from  the  satisfaction  of 


the  Death  and  Passion  of  Jesus  Christ. 
Finally,  We  hold  Purgatory  to  be  none 
other  than  a  cheat,  which  came  out  of 
the  same  shop :  from  which  also  pro¬ 
ceeded  monastical  vows,  pilgrimages, 
prohibition  of  marriage  and  the  use  of 
meats,  a  ceremonious  observation  of 
days,  auricular  confession,  indulgences, 
and  all  other  such  matters,  by  which 
Grace  and  Salvation  may  be  supposed 
to  be  deserved.  Which  things  we 
reject,  not  only  for  the  false  opinion  of 
merit  which  was  affixed  to  them,  but 
also  because  they  are  the  inventions  of 
men,  and  are  a  yoke  laid  by  their  sole 
authority  upon  conscience”  (Quick  I. 
xi.). — See  also  the  Confession  written  by 
Calvin  in  1562,  to  be  laid  before  the 
Emperor  Ferdinand  (Calvini  Epist.  pp. 
564-66). 


THE  HUGUENOTS. 


499 


dismiss  her  absolutely,  under  pain  of  deposition,  while  laymen,  under 
such  circumstances,  were  exhorted  to  be  reconciled  to  their  guilty 
partners.1  Any  lapse  from  virtue  on  the  part  of  a  minister  was 
visited  with  peremptory  deposition ; 2  nor  was  this  a  mere  idle  threat 
such  as  were  too  many  of  the  innumerable  decrees  of  the  Catholic 
councils  quoted  above,  for  the  proceedings  of  various  synods  show 
that  it  was  carried  sternly  into  execution.  A  list  of  such  vagrant 
and  deposed  ministers  was  even  kept  and  published  to  the  churches, 
with  personal  descriptions  of  the  individuals,  that  they  might  not  be 
able  to  impose  on  the  unwary.  Indeed,  the  national  synod  of  Lyons, 
in  1563,  went  so  far  as  to  punish  those  ministers  who  brought  con¬ 
tempt  upon  the  church  by  unfitting  marriages ; 3  and,  though  this  was 
omitted  from  the  final  code  of  discipline,  it  shows  the  exceeding 
strictness  with  which  the  internal  economy  of  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment  of  the  Huguenots  was  regulated. 

The  relations  of  the  Catholic  church  with  its  apostates  were  some¬ 
what  confused,  and  they  varied  with  the  political  exigencies  of  the 
situation.  Ecclesiastics  who  left  the  Catholic  communion  did  not 
hesitate  to  enter  into  matrimony;4 * * * * * *  and  when  the  desolation  of  civil 
war  rendered  a  forced  tolerance  of  the  new  religion  necessary,  their 
position  was  a  source  of  considerable  debate,  varying  with  the  fluctu¬ 
ations  of  the  tangled  politics  of  the  time.  The  Edict  of  Pacification 
of  Amboise,  in  March,  1562,  was  held  by  the  Huguenots  to  legalize 
the  marriages  of  these  apostates,  but  the  explanatory  declaration  of 
August,  1563,  ordered  their  reclamation  by  the  church  under  pain 
of  exile.  When  the  Spanish  alliance  gave  fresh  assurances  of  tri¬ 
umph  to  the  Catholics  this  was  enforced  with  increased  severity. 
The  Edict  of  Roussillon,  in  1564,  commands  that  all  priests,  monks, 
and  nuns,  who  had  abandoned  their  profession  and  entered  into  mat¬ 
rimony,  shall  sunder  their  unhallowed  bonds  and  return  to  their 


1  Discip.  Chap.  xiii.  can.  xxviii. 
(Quick,  I.  liii. ). 

2  Ibid.  Chap.  I.  can.  xlvii. 

3  Chap.  iv.  Art.  xii.,  Chap.  xvi. 
Art.  xiv.  (Quick,  I.  32,  38). 

4  Prelates  of  high  position  were  not 

wanting  to  the  list  of  married  men. 

Carracioli,  Bishop  of  Troyes,  and  Spi- 

fame,  Bishop  of  Nevers,  were  of  the 

number.  Jean  de  Monluc,  Bishop  of 

Valence  (brother  of  the  celebrated 

Marshal  Bl'aise  de  Monluc,  whose  cru¬ 


elties  to  the  Huguenots  were  so  noto¬ 
rious),  married  without  openly  aposta¬ 
tizing,  and  died  in  the  Catholic  faith. 
Cardinal  Odet  de  Chatillon,  Bishop  of 
Beauvais,  and  brother  of  the  Admiral, 
became  a  declared  Calvinist,  married 
Mdlle.  de  Hauteville,  and  called  him¬ 
self  Comte  de  Beauvais.  He  seems 
to  have  retained  his  benefices,  and  was 
still  called  by  the  Catholics  M.  le 
Cardinal,  11  Car  il  nous  estoit  fort  a 
coeur,”  says  Brantome  (Discours  48), 
“  de  luy  changer  le  nom  qui  luy  avoit 
este  si  bien  seant.” 


500 


CALVINISM. 


duties.  Recalcitrants  were  required  to  leave  the  kingdom  within 
two  months,  under  pain,  in  the  case  of  men,  of  condemnation  to  the 
galleys  for  life,  and  in  that  of  women,  of  perpetual  imprisonment.1 
As  most  of  the  Calvinist  ministers  necessarily  belonged  to  the  class 
thus  assailed,  the  effect  of  this  legislation  in  stimulating  the  troubles 
of  the  kingdom  can  readily  be  perceived. 

The  dismal  strife  of  the  succeeding  ten  years  at  length  showed 
that,  in  spite  of  the  Tridentine  canons,  the  toleration  of  this  iniquity 
was  a  necessity.  Thus  in  the  Edicts  of  Pacification  issued  by  Henry 
III.  in  1576  and  1577  there  is  a  provision  which  admits  as  valid 
the  marriages  theretofore  contracted  by  all  priests  or  religious  persons 
of  either  sex.  The  issue  of  such  unions  was  declared  competent  to 
inherit  the  personalty  of  the  parents  and  such  realty  as  either  parent 
might  have  acquired,  but  was  incapable  of  other  inheritance,  direct 
or  collateral.2 

The  church  was  forced  to  submit  to  this  temporizing  tolerance 
of  evil,  and  condescended  to  entreaty  since  force  was  no  longer  per¬ 
mitted.  In  1581,  the  council  of  Rouen,  while  deploring  the  number 
of  monks  and  nuns  who  had  left  their  convents,  apostatized  and 
married,  directs  that  they  shall  be  tempted  back,  treated  with  kind¬ 
ness,  and  pardon  be  sought  for  them  from  the  Holy  See.3  In  the 
final  settlement  of  the  religious  troubles,  the  concessions  made  by 
Henry  III.  were  renewed  and  somewhat  amplified  by  the  Edict  of 
Nantes  in  1598.4  When  the  reaction  came,  however,  these  pro¬ 
visions  were  held  to  be  only  retrospective  in  their  action,  and  were 
not  admitted  as  legalizing  subsequent  marriages.  Thus  in  1628  a 
knight  of  Malta,  in  1630  a  nun,  and  in  1640  a  priest  of  Nevers, 
who  had  embraced  Calvinism,  ventured  on  matrimony,  but  were 
separated  from  their  spouses  and  the  marriages  were  pronounced 
null.5  These  decisions  were  based  on  the  principle  that  the  celibacy 
of  ecclesiastics  was  prescribed  by  municipal  as  well  as  by  canon  law, 
and  that  a  priest  in  abjuring  his  religion  did  not  escape  from  the 
obligations  imposed  upon  him  by  the  laws  of  the  kingdom.6 


1  Edit  de  Roussillon,  Art.  7  (Isam- 
bert,  Anciennes  Lois  Franpaises,  XV. 
172).  This  edict  was  cited  in  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  of  the  case  of  Dumonteil, 
about  the  year  1830,  of  which  more 
hereafter. 

2  Edit  de  1576,  Art.  9. — Edit  de 

Poitiers,  Art.  Secrets,  No.  8  (Isam- 

bert,  T.  XV.  pp.  283,  331). 


3  Concil.  Rotomag.  ann.  1581  cap. 
de  Monasteriis  $  32  (Harduin.  X.  1253). 

*  Edit  de  Nantes,  Art.  Secrets,  No. 
39  (Isambert,  T.  XVI.  p.  206). 

6  Gregoire,  Hist,  du  Mariage  des 
Pretres  en  France,  pp.  58-9. 

6  A  decision  rendered  on  the~argu- 
ment  of  the  distinguished  avocat- 


THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMATION. 


501 


In  Scotland,  as  in  France,  the  question  of  sacerdotal  marriage 
may  be  considered  as  having  virtually  been  settled  in  advance.  Lol- 
lardry  had  not  been  confined  to  the  southern  portion  of  Great 
Britain.  It  had  penetrated  into  Scotland,  and  had  received  the 
countenance  of  those  whose  position  and  influence  were  well  calcu¬ 
lated  to  aid  in  its  dissemination  among  the  people.  In  1494,  thirty 
of  these  heretics,  known  as  “the  Lollards  of  Kyle,”  w'ere  prosecuted 
before  James  IY.  by  Robert  Blacater,  Archbishop  of  Glasgow.  Their 
station  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  they  escaped  the  punish¬ 
ment  due  to  their  sins  by  the  favor  of  the  monarch,  “for  divers  of 
them  were  his  great  familiars.”  The  thirty-four  articles  of  accusation 
brought  against  them  are  mostly  Wickliflite  in  tendency,  and  their 
views  on  the  question  of  celibacy  are  manifested  in  the  twenty-second 
article  which  accuses  them  of  asserting  “  That  Priests  may  have 
wives  according  to  the  constitution  of  the  Law  and  of  the  Primitive 
Christian  Church.”1 

The  soil  was  thus  ready  for  the  plough  of  the  Reformation;  while 
the  temper  of  the  Scottish  race  gave  warrant  that  when  the  mighty 
movement  should  reach  them,  it  would  be  marked  by  that  stern  and 
uncompromising  spirit  which  alone  could  satisfy  conscientious  and 
fiery  bigots,  who  would  regard  all  half-measures  as  pacts  with  Satan. 
Nor  was  there  lacking  ample  cause  to  excite  in  the  minds  of  all  men 
the  desire  for  a  sweeping  and  effectual  reform.  Corruption  had  ex¬ 
tended  through  every  fibre  of  the  Scottish  church  as  foul  and  as 
all-pervading  as  that  which  we  have  traced  throughout  the  rest  of 
Christendom. 

Not  long  after  the  year  1530,  and  before  the  new  heresy  had 
obtained  a  foothold,  William  Arith,  a  Dominican,  ventured  to  assail 
the  vices  of  his  fellow  churchmen.  In  a  sermon  preached  at  St. 
Andrews,  with  the  approbation  of  the  heads  of  the  universities,  he 
alluded  to  the  false  miracles  with  which  the  people  were  deceived, 
and  the  abuses  practised  at  shrines  to  which  credulous  devotion  was 
invited.  “As  of  late  dayes,”  he  proceeded,  “our  Lady  of  Karsgreng 
hath  hopped  from  one  green  hillock  to  another:  But,  honest  men  of 
St.  Andrewes,  if  ye  love  your  wives  and  daughters,  hold  them  at 


general  Omer  Talon  expressly  states 
Uque  la  prohibition  du  mariage  des 
personnes  constitutes  dans  les  ordres 
etant^uneloi  de  l’Etat  aussi  bien  que 
de  l’Eglise,  un  pretre  malgre  sa  pro¬ 
fession  de  Calvinisme,  etait  demeure 
sujet  aux  lois  de  l’Etat,  et  des  lors 


n’avait  pas  pu  valableraent  ,contracter 
mariage.” —  Bouhier  de  l’Ecluse,  de 
l’Etat  des  Pretres  en  France,  Paris, 
1842,  p.  12. 

1  Knox,  History  of  the  Reformation 
in  Scotland,  p.  3  (Ed.  1609). 


502 


CALVINISM. 


home,  or  else  send  them  in  good  honest  company ;  for  if  ye  knew 
what  miracles  were  wrought  there,  ye  would  thank  neither  God  nor 
our  Lady.”  In  another  sermon,  arguing  that  the  disorders  of  the 
clergy  should  he  subjected  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  civil  authorities, 
he  introduced  an  anecdote  respecting  Prior  Patrick  Hepburn,  after¬ 
wards  Bishop  of  Murray.  That  prelate  once,  in  merry  discourse 
with  his  gentlemen,  asked  of  them  the  number  of  their  mistresses, 
and  what  proportion  of  the  fair  dames  Avere  married.  The  first  who 
answered  confessed  to  five,  of  whom  two  were  bound  in  wedlock ;  the 
next  boasted  of  seven,  with  three  married  women  among  them ;  and 
so  on  until  the  turn  came  to  Hepburn  himself,  who,  proud  of  his 
bonnes  fortunes ,  declared  that  although  he  was  the  youngest  man 
there,  his  mistresses  numbered  twelve,  of  whom  seven  were  men’s 
wives.1  Yet  Arith  was  a  good  Catholic,  who,  on  being  driven  from 
Scotland  for  his  plain  speaking,  suffered  imprisonment  in  England 
under  Henry  VIII.  for  maintaining  the  supremacy  of  the  pope. 

How  little  concealment  was  thought  requisite  with  regard  to  these 
scandals  is  exemplified  in  the  case  of  Alexander  Ferrers,  which 
occurred  about  the  same  time.  Taken  prisoner  by  the  English  and 
immured  for  seven  years  in  the  Tower  of  London,  he  returned  home 
to  find  that  his  wife  had  been  consoled  and  his  substance  dissipated 
in  his  absence  by  a  neighboring  priest,  for  the  which  cause  he  not 
unnaturally  “ spake  more  liberally  of  priests  than  they  could  bear.” 
By  this  time,  heresy  was  spreading,  and  severe  measures  of  repres¬ 
sion  were  considered  necessary.  It  therefore  was  not  difficult  to 
have  the  man’s  disrespectful  remarks  construed  as  savoring  of  Luther¬ 
anism,  and  he  was  accordingly  brought  up  for  trial  at  St.  Andrews. 
The  first  article  of  accusation  read  to  him  "was  that  he  despised  the 
Mass,  whereto  he  answered,  “Ihearemore  Masses  in  eight  dayes 
than  three  bishops  there  sitting  say  in  a  yeare.”  The  next  article 
accused  him  of  contemning  the  sacraments.  “The  priests,”  replied 
he,  “were  the  most  contemnors  of  the  sacraments,  especially  of  mat¬ 
rimony.”  “And  that  he  witnessed  by  many  of  the  priests  there 
present,  and  named  the  man’s  wife  with  whom  they  had  meddled, 
and  especially  Sir  John  Dungwaill,  who  had  seven  years  together 
abused  his  own  wife  and  consumed  his  substance,  and  said:  because 
I  complain  of  such  injuries,  I  am  here  summoned  and  accused  as  one 


1  Knox,  pp.  15-16. — Calderwood’s  Historie  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  I.  83-5 
fWodrow  Soc.). 


THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMATION. 


503 


that  is  worthy  to  be  burnt:  For  God’s  sake,  said  he,  will  ye  take 
wives  of  your  own,  that  I  and  others  whom  ye  have  abused  may  be 
revenged  on  you.”  Old  Gawain  Dunbar,  Bishop  of  Aberdeen,  not 
relishing  this  public  accusation,  sought  to  justify  himself,  exclaiming, 
“ Carle,  thou  shalt  not  know  my  wife;”  but  the  prisoner  turned  the 
tables  on  him,  “My  lord,  ye  are  too  old,  but  by  the  grace  of  God  I 
shall  drink  with  your  daughter  or  I  depart.”  “And  thereat  there 
was  smiling  of  the  best  and  loud  laughter  of  some,  for  the  bishop  had 
a  daughter  married  with  Andrew  Balfour  in  that  town.”  The  pre¬ 
lates  who  sat  in  judgment  found  that  they  were  exchanging  places 
with  the  accused,  and,  fearful  of  further  revelations  from  the  reckless 
Alexander,  commanded  him  to  depart;  but  he  refused,  unless  each 
one  should  contribute  something  to  replace  the  goods  which  his  wife’s 
paramour  had  consumed,  and  finally,  to  stop  his  evil  tongue,  they 
paid  him  and  bade  him  begone.1 

All  prelates,  however,  were  not  so  sensitive.  When  Cardinal 
Beatoun,  Archbishop  of  St.  Andrews,  primate  of  Scotland,  and 
virtual  governor  of  the  realm,  about  the  year  1546  married  his  eldest 
daughter  to  the  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of  Crawford,  he  caused  the 
nuptials  to  be  celebrated  with  regal  magnificence,  and  in  the  marriage 
articles,  signed  with  his  own  hand,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  call  her 
“my  daughter.”  It  is  not  difficult,  therefore,  to  credit  the  story  that 
the  night  before  his  assassination  was  passed  with  his  mistress,  Marion 
Ogilby,  who  was  seen  leaving  his  chamber  not  long  before  Norman 
Leslie  and  Kirkaldy  of  Grange  forced  their  way  into  his  castle.2  His 
successor  in  the  see  of  St.  Andrews,  John  Hamilton,  was  equally 
notorious  for  his  licentiousness ;  and  men  wondered,  not  at  his  im¬ 
morality,  but  at  his  taste  in  preferring  to  all  his  other  concubines  one 
whose  only  attraction  seemed  to  be  the  zest  given  to  sin  by  the  fact 
that  she  was  the  wife  of  one  of  his  kindred.3 4 

This  is  testimony  from  hostile  witnesses,  and  we  might  perhaps 
impugn  their  evidence  on  that  ground,  were  it  not  that  the  Catholic 
Church  of  Scotland  itself  admitted  the  abandoned  morals  of  its  mem¬ 
bers  when  the  rapid  progress  of  Calvinism  at  length  drove  it  in  self- 
defence  to  attempt  a  reform  which  was  its  only  chance  of  salvation. 
In  the  last  Parliament  held  by  James  V.  before  his  death  in  1542, 
an  act  was  passed  exhorting  the  prelates  and  ecclesiastics  in  general 

1  Knox,  pp.  16-17.  xv. — Robertson,  Hist  of  Scot.  B.  II. — 

Knox,  71-2. — Calderwood  I.  222. 

2  Buchanan.  Rer.  Scot.  Hist.  Lib.  *  ^  i,  T  -u 

3  Buchanan.  Lib.  xv. 

4 


504 


CALVINISM. 


to  take  measures  “for  reforming  of  ther  lyvis,  and  for  avoyding  of 
the  opin  sclander  that  is  gevin  to  the  haill  estates  throucht  the  spirit¬ 
ual  mens  ungodly  and  dissolut  lyves.”1  Nothing  was  then  done  in 
spite  of  this  solemn  warning,  though  the  countenance  afforded  to  the 
Reformers  by  the  Regent  Arran,  strengthened  by  his  alliance  with 
Henry  YIII.,  was  daily  causing  the  heresy  to  assume  more  dangerous 
proportions.  When,  therefore,  the  Catholic  party,  rallying  after  the 
murder  of  Cardinal  Beatoun,  at  length  triumphed  with  the  aid  of 
France,  and  sent  the  young  Queen  of  Scots  to  marry  Francis  II., 
they  seemed  to  recognize  that  they  could  only  maintain  their  advant¬ 
age  by  meeting  public  opinion  in  endeavoring  to  reform  the  church. 
Accordingly,  in  November,  1549,  a  council  was  convoked  at  Edin¬ 
burgh,  of  which  the  first  canon  declares  that  the  licentiousness  of  the 
clergy  had  given  rise  to  the  gravest  scandals,  to  repress  which  the 


rules  enjoined  by  the  council  of  Bale  must  be  strictly  enforced  and 
universally  obeyed.  The  second  canon  is  no  less  significant  in  order¬ 
ing  that  prelates  and  other  ecclesiastics  shall  not  live  with  their  ille¬ 
gitimate  children,  nor  provide  for  them  or  promote  them  in  the 
paternal  churches,  nor  marry  their  daughters  to  barons  by  endowing 
them  with  the  patrimony  of  Christ,  nor  cause  their  sons  to  be  made 
barons  by  the  same  means.2 

This  was  of  small  avail.  Ten  years  afterwards,  the  progress  of 
heresy  becoming  ever  more  alarming,  another  council  was  held,  in 
March,  1559,  to  devise  means  to  put  a  stop  to  the  encroachments  of 
the  enemy.  To  this  assembly  the  Catholic  nobles  addressed  an 
earnest  prayer  for  reformation.  After  alluding  to  the  proceedings 
of  the  Parliament  of  1542,  they  add,  “And  siclyk  remembring  in 
diverss  of  the  lait  provincial  counsales  haldin  within  this  realm,  that 
poynt  has  been  treittet  of,  and  sindrie  statutis  synodale  maid  tlier- 
upon,  of  the  quhilks  nevertheless  thar  hes  folowit  nan  or  litill  fruitt 
as  yitt,  hot  rathare  the  said  estate  is  deteriorate  ...  it  is  maist 
expedient  therefore  that  tliai  presentlie  condescend  to  seik  reforma¬ 
tion  of  thir  lyvis  .  .  .  and  naymlie  that  oppin  and  manifest  sins  and 
notor  offends  be  forborn  and  abstenit  fra  in  tyme  to  cum.”  In  this 
request  they  had  been  anticipated  by  the  Reformers,  who,  the  pre¬ 
vious  year,  in  a  supplication  addressed  to  the  queen-regent,  included 
among  their  demands  “That  the  wicked,  slanderous  and  detestable 


1  Wilkins  IV.  207. 

2  Concil.  Edinburgens.  ann.  1540  can.  1,  2  (Wilkins  IV.  48). 


THE  SCOTTISH  EEFOEMATION. 


505 


life  of  Prelats  and  of  the  State  Ecclesiasticall  may  be  reformed,  that 
the  people  by  them  have  not  occasion  (as  of  many  dayes  they  have 
had)  to  contemne  their  Ministrie  and  the  Preaching  whereof  they 
should  be  Messengers.” 

The  council,  thus  urged  by  friend  and  foe,  recognized  the  extreme 
necessity  of  the  case,  and  did  its  best  to  cure  the  immedicable  disease. 
Its  first  canon  reaffirmed  the  observance  of  the  Basilian  regulations, 
and  appointed  a  commission  empowered  to  enforce  them ;  and,  that 
nothing  should  interfere  with  its  efficiency,  the  Archbishops  of  St. 
Andrews  and  Glasgow  made  a  special  renunciation  of  their  exemp¬ 
tion  from  the  jurisdiction  of  the  council.  The  second  canon,  in  for¬ 
bidding  the  residence  of  illegitimate  children  with  their  clerical  fathers, 
endeavored  to  procure  obedience  to  the  rule  ordered  by  the  council  of 
1549,  by  permitting  it  for  four  days  in  each  quarter,  and  by  a  penalty 
for  infractions  of  <£200  in  the  case  of  an  archbishop,  £100  in  that  of 
a  bishop,  and  leaving  the  mulct  to  be  imposed  on  inferior  ecclesiastics 
at  the  discretion  of  the  officials.  The  third  canon  prohibited  the  pro¬ 
motion  of  children  in  their  father’s  benefices,  and  supplicated  the 
queen-regent  to  obtain  of  the  pope  that  no  dispensations  should  be 
granted  to  evade  the  rule.  The  fourth  canon  inhibited  ecclesiastics 
from  marrying  their  daughters  to  barons  and  lairds,  and  endowing 
them  writh  church  lands,  or  making  their  sons  barons  or  lairds  with 
more  than  £100  annual  income,  under  pain  of  fine  to  the  amount  of 
the  dowry  or  lands  abstracted  from  the  church;  and  all  grants  of 
church  lands  or  tithes  to  concubines  or  children  were  pronounced  null 
and  void.1 

When  such  legislation  was  necessary,  the  disorders  which  it  was 
intended  to  repress  are  acknowledged  in  terms  admitting  neither  of 
palliation  nor  excuse.  The  extent  of  the  evil  especially  alluded  to  in 


1  Wilkins  IV.  207-10.— Knox,  p. 
129.  It  should  he  borne  in  mind  in 
estimating  these  penalties  that  they  are 
expressed  in  pounds  Scots,  which  were 
about  one-twelfth  of  the  pound  sterling. 
These  canons,  it  appears,  were  not 
adopted  without  opposition.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Knox,  “  But  herefrom  appealed 
the  Bishop  of  Murray  and  other  pre¬ 
lates,  saying  That  they  would  abide  the 
canon  law.  And  so  they  might  well 
enough  do,  so  long  as  they  remained 
Interpreters,  Dispensators,  Makers  and 
Disannulled  of  the  law  ”  (Op.  cit. 
119).  It  was  doubtless  on  some  such 


considerations  that  the  Archbishop  of 
St.  Andrews  relied  when  he  consented 
to  waive  his  exemption  in  this  matter. 
His  personal  reputation  may  be  esti¬ 
mated  from  the  remark  of  Queen  Mary 
when,  in  December,  1566,  he  performed 
the  rite  of  baptism  on  James  VI.  She 
forbade  him  to  use  the  popular  cere¬ 
mony  of  employing  his  saliva,  giving  a 
reason  which  was  in  the  highest  degree 
derogatory  to  his  moral  character  JSir 
J.  Y.  Simpson,  in  Proceedings  of  Epi¬ 
demiological  Society  of  London,  Nov. 
5th,  1860). 


506 


CALVINISM. 


the  latter  canons  is  further  exemplified  by  the  fact  that  during  the 
thirty  years  immediately  following  the  establishment  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  in  Scotland,  more  letters  of  legitimation  were  taken  out  than 
were  issued  in  the  subsequent  two  centuries.  These  were  given  to 
the  sons  of  the  clergy  who  were  allowed  to  retain  their  benefices,  and 
•who  then  made  over  the  property  to  their  natural  children.1 


Such  being  the  state  of  morals  among  the  ministers  of  the  old 
religion,  it  is  easy  to  appreciate  the  immense  advantage  enjoyed  by 
the  Reformers.  They  made  good  use  of  it.  Knox  loses  no  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  stigmatizing  the  “ pestilent  Papists  and  Masse-mongers”  as 
“  adulterers  and  whoremasters,”  who  were  thus  perpetually  held  up 
to  the  people  for  execration,  while  the  individual  wrongs  from  which 
so  many  suffered  were  noised  about  and  made  the  subject  of  con¬ 
stantly-increasing  popular  indignation.2  Yet  the  abrogation  of 
celibacy  occupies  less  space  in  the  history  of  the  Scottish  Reforma¬ 
tion  than  in  that  of  any  other  people  who  threw  off  the  allegiance  to 
Rome. 

The  remote  position  of  Scotland  and  its  comparative  barbarism 
rendered  it  in  some  degree  inaccessible  to  the  early  doctrines  of 
Luther  and  Zwingli.  Before  it  began  to  show  a  trace  of  the  new 
ideas,  clerical  marriage  had  long  passed  out  of  the  region  of  disputa¬ 
tion  with  the  Reformers,  and  wras  firmly  established  as  one  of  the 
inseparable  results  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  professed  by  all  the 
reformed  churches.3  Not  only  was  it  thus  accepted  as  a  matter  of 


1  Robertson,  Hist.  Scot.  Bk.  II. 

2  Thus  the  Parliament  of  1 560,  which 
effected  a  settlement  of  the  Reformed 
Religion,  was  urged  to  its  duty  by  a 
Supplication  presented  in  the  name  of 
“  The  Barons,  Gentlemen,  Burgesses, 
and  other  true  Subjects  of  this  Realm, 
professing  the  Lord  Jesus  within  the 
same,”  which,  among  its  arguments 
against  Catholicism,  does  not  hesitate 
to  assert — “  Secondarily,  seeing  that  the 
sacraments  of  Jesus  Christ  are  most 
shamefully  abused  and  profaned  by 
that  Romane  Harlot  and  her  sworne 
vassals,  and  also  because  that  the  true 
Discipline  of  the  Ancient  Church  is 
utterly  now  among  that  Sect  extin¬ 
guished:  For  who  within  the  Realme 
are  more  corrupt  in  life  and  manners 
than  are  they  that  are  called  the  Clergie, 
living  in  whoredom  and  adultery,  de- 

flouring  Virgins,  corrupting  Matrons, 


and  doing  all  abomination  without  fear 
of  punishment.  We  humbly,  there¬ 
fore,  desire  your  Honors  to  finde  remedy 
against  the  one  and  the  other  ” — Knox, 
p.  255. 

3  This  doctrine  bore  its  full  share  in 
the  history  of  the  Scottish  reformation. 
Two  years  after  the  execution  of  the 
protomartvr,  Patrick  Hamilton,  in 
1528,  his  sister  Catharine  was  arraigned 
on  account  of  her  belief  in  justification 
through  Christ.  Learned  divines  urged 
upon  her  with  prolix  earnestness  of 
disputation  the  necessity  of  works,  until 
her  patience  gave  way,  and  she  rudely 
exclaimed,  “Work  here  and  work 
there,  what  kind  of  working  is  all  this? 
No  work  can  save  me  but  the  work  of 
Christ  my  Saviour.”  By  the  conni¬ 
vance  of  the  king  she  was  enabled  to 
escape  to  England. — Calderwood’s  His¬ 
toric,  I.  109. 


THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMATION. 


507 


course  by  all  converts  to  tlie  new  faith,  but  that  faith,  when  once 
introduced,  spread  in  Scotland  with  a  rapidity  proportioned  to  the 
earnest  character  of  the  people.  The  permission  to  read  the  Script¬ 
ures  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  granted  by  Parliament  in  1543,  doubtless 
had  much  to  do  with  this;  the  leaning  of  the  Regent  Arran  to  the 
same  side  gave  it  additional  impetus,  and  the  savage  fierceness  with 
which  the  Reformers  were  prepared  to  vindicate  their  belief  is  shown 
by  the  murder  of  Cardinal  Beatoun,  which  was  countenanced  and 
justified  by  Knox  himself.  Powerful  nobles  soon  saw  in  it  the 
means  of  emancipating  themselves  from  the  vacillating  control  of  the 
regent;  nor  was  the  central  authority  strengthened  when,  in  1554, 
the  reins  of  power  were  wrested  from  the  feeble  Arran  and  confided 
to  the  queen-dowager,  Mary  of  Guise,  who  found  herself  obliged  to 
encourage  each  party  by  turns,  and  to  balance  one  against  the  other, 
to  prevent  either  Catholic  or  Calvinist  from  obtaining  control  over 
the  state.  Then,  too,  as  in  Germany  and  England,  the  temporal 
possessions  of  the  church  were  a  powerful  temptation  to  its  destruc¬ 
tion.  From  the  great  Duke  of  Chatelleraut  to  the  laird  of  some 
insignificant  peel,  all  were  needy  and  all  eager  for  a  share  in  the 
spoil.  When,  in  1560,  an  assembly  of  the  nobles  at  Edinburgh 
listened  to  a  disputation  on  the  Mass,  and  the  Catholic  doctors  were 
unable  to  defend  it  as  a  propitiatory  sacrifice,  the  first  exclamation  of 
the  lords  revealed  the  secret  tendencies  of  their  thoughts — “We  have 
been  miserably  deceived  heretofore;  for  if  the  Mass  may  not  obtain 
remission  of  sins  to  the  quick  and  to  the  dead,  Wherefore  were  all 
the  Abbies  so  richly  doted  and  endowed  with  our  Temporall  lands?”1 

Of  course  less  selfish  purposes  were  put  forward  to  enlist  the 
support  of  the  people.  On  the  1st  of  January,  1559,  when  the 
storm  was  gathering,  but  before  it  had  burst,  the  inmates  of  the 
religious  houses  found  affixed  to  their  gates  a  proclamation  in  the 
name  of  “The  Blinde,  Crooked,  Lame,  Widows,  Orphans,  and  all 
other  Poor,  so  visited  by  the  hand  of  God  as  cannot  work,”  ordering 
the  monks  to  leave  the  patrimony  intended  to  relieve  the  suffering, 
but  usurped  by  indolent  shavelings,  giving  them  until  Whit-Sunday 
to  make  their  exit,  after  which  they  -would  be  ejected  by  force,  and 
ending  with  the  significant  warning — “  Let  him,  therefore,  that  hath 
before  stolen,  steal  no  more,  but  rather  let  him  work  with  his  hands 
that  he  may  be  helpfull  to  the  poore.”2 


1  Knox,  p.  283. 


2  Knox,  p.  119. — Calderwood,  I.  423. 


508 


CALVINISM. 


Such  a  cry  could  hardly  fail  to  be  popular,  but  when  the  threat 
was  carried  into  execution,  the  blind  and  the  crooked,  the  widow 
and  orphan  received  so  small  a  share  of  the  spoil  that  they  were 
worse  off  than  before.  As  we  have  already  seen  in  England,  the 
destruction  of  the  Scottish  monasteries  was  the  commencement  of  the 
necessity  of  making  some  public  provision  for  paupers.1  The  nobles 
seized  the  lion’s  share ;  the  rest  fell  to  the  crown,  subject  to  the  pay¬ 
ment  of  the  very  moderate  stipends  assigned  to  the  comparatively  few 
ministers  required  by  the  new  establishment,  and  these  stipends  were 
so  irregularly  paid  that  the  unfortunate  ministers  were  frequently  in 
danger  of  starvation,  and  were  constantly  besieging  the  court  with 
their  dolorous  complaints.  Where  the  lands  and  revenues  went  is 
indicated  with  grim  humor  by  Knox,  in  describing  the  resistance 
offered  in  1560  to  the  adoption  of  his  Book  of  Discipline  by  those 
who  had  professed  great  zeal  for  the  Lord  Jesus.  Lord  Erskine  had 
been  one  of  the  first  and  most  consistent  of  the  “  Lords  of  the  Con¬ 
gregation,”  yet  he  also  refused  to  sign  the  book — “And  no  wonder, 
for  besides  that  he  had  a  very  evill  woman  to  his  wife,  if  the  Poore, 
the  Schooles,  and  the  Ministerie  of  the  Church  had  their  owne,  his 
Kitchin  would  lack  two  parts  and  more  of  that  which  he  unjustly 
now  possesseth.”2 

Yet,  when  compared  with  the  rich  abbatial  manors  of  England  or 
the  princely  foundations  of  Germany,  the  spoil  of  the  church  was 
mean  indeed.  Knox  had  resided  much  abroad,  and  had  seen  the 
vast  wealth  which  the  piety  of  ages  had  showered  upon  the  church 
in  the  most  opulent  lands  of  Europe,  yet  his  simplicity  or  fanaticism 
finds  source  of  wondering  comment  in  the  homespun  luxury  of  the 
unfortunate  monks  whom  he  assisted  in  dispossessing.  When  the  de¬ 
struction  of  the  monasteries  in  1559  commenced  by  a  brawl  in  Perth, 
caused  by  a  sermon  preached  by  Knox,  and  three  prominent  con¬ 
vents  were  broken  up,  he  expatiates  on  the  extravagance  revealed  to 
sight — “And  in  very  deed  the  Grey-Friers  was  a  place  so  well  pro- 


1  Thus  the  assembly  of  the  church 
in  1562  drew  up  a  remonstrance  to  the 
queen,  in  which  they  requested  that 
“in  every  Parish  some  of  the  Tythes 
may  be  assigned  to  the  sustentation 
and  maintenance  of  the  poor  within 
the  same :  And  likewise  that  some 
publike  relief  may  be  provided  for  the 
poor  within  Burroughs” — Knox,  p. 


339. 


2  Ibid.  p.  278.  The  Book  was  signed 
at  Edinburgh,  Jan.  27,  1561,  but  only 
after  the  adoption  of  a  proviso — “  Pro¬ 
vided  that  the  Bishops,  Abbots,  Priors 
and  other  Prelates  and  Beneficed  men, 
which  else  have  adjoyned  themselves  to 
us,  brooke  the  revenues  of  their  Bene¬ 
fices  during  their  lifetimes.” — Worldly 
wisdom  certainly  was  not  lost  sight  of 
in  the  ardor  of  a  new  and  purer  religion. 


THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMATION. 


509 


videcl  that  unlesse  honest  men  had  seen  the  same,  we  would  have 
feared  to  have  reported  what  provision  they  had,  their  sheets,  blan¬ 
kets,  beds  and  coverlets  were  such  that  no  Earle  in  Scotland  had 
better :  Their  naperie  was  fine ;  they  were  but  8  persons  in  the  Con¬ 
vent,  and  yet  they  had  8  puncheons  of  salt  beef  (consider  the  time 
of  the  yeere,  the  eleventh  of  May),  wine,  beere,  and  ale,  beside  store 
of  victuals  belonging  thereto.”1  Imagine  an  abbot  of  St.  Albans 
or  an  abbess  of  Poissy  reduced  to  the  coverlets  and  salt  beef  which 
the  stern  Calvinist  deemed  an  indulgence  so  great  as  to  be  incredible  ! 

Still,  in  so  impoverished  a  country  as  the  Scotland  of  that  period, 
even  these  poor  spoils  w^ere  a  motive  sufficient  to  prove  a  powerful 
aid  to  the  conquering  party  in  the  struggle.  And  yet,  amid  all  the 
miserable  ambitions  of  the  Erskines  and  Murrays,  the  Huntleys  and 
Bothwells,  who  occupied  the  prominent  places  in  the  court  and  camp, 
we  should  do  grievous  wrong  to  the  spirit  which  triumphed  at  last 
over  the  force  and  fraud  of  the  Guises,  if  we  attributed  to  temporal 
motives  alone  the  movement  which  expelled  licentious  prelates  and 
drove  Queen  Mary  to  the  fateful  refuge  of  Fotheringay.  The  selfish 
aims  of  the  nobles  would  have  been  fruitless  but  for  the  zealous 
earnestness  of  the  people,  led  by  men  of  iron  nature,  wTho  doubted 
themselves  as  little  as  they  doubted  their  God,  and  who,  in  the  death- 
struggle  with  Antichrist,  wTere  as  ready  to  suffer  as  they  w~ere  ruthless 
to  inflict.  Nor  can  the  disorders  of  the  Catholic  clergy  be  rightly 
imputed  to  the  temperament  of  the  race,  for  the  Reformers,  who  car¬ 
ried  with  them  so  large  a  portion  of  the  middle  and  lower  classes, 
preached  a  system  of  rigid  morality  to  which  the  world  had  been  a 
stranger  since  the  virtues  of  the  Germanic  tribes  had  been  lost  in 
the  overthrow  of  the  Empire;  and  they  not  merely  preached  it,  but 
obtained  its  embodiment  in  a  code  of  repressive  laws,  which  their 
vigilant  authority  strictly  enforced. 

I  have  said  above  that  the  question  of  celibacy  appears  but  rarely 
in  the  course  of  the  contest,  yet,  notwithstanding  the  causes  wdiich 
rendered  it  a  less  prominent  subject  of  debate  than  elsew'here,  it 
occasionally  rises  to  view.  The  first  instance  of  clerical  marriage 
that  I  find  recorded  occurred  in  1538,  when  Thomas  Coklaw,  parish 
priest  of  Tillibodie,  married  a  widow  of  the  same  village  named 
Margaret  Jameson.  This,  however,  was  not  done  openly  and  defi¬ 
antly,  as  in  Germany,  but  in  secret,  and  the  married  couple  con- 


1  Knox,  136. 


510 


CALVINISM. 


tinuecl  to  dwell  apart.  That  the  infraction  of  the  canons  was  not 
without  danger  was  shown  by  the  result,  for,  when  it  became  known, 
Coklaw  was  tried  by  the  Bishop  of  Dumblane  and  condemned  to  per¬ 
petual  imprisonment ;  but  his  relatives  broke  open  his  dungeon  and 
he  escaped  to  England.  When,  early  in  the  following  year,  a  group 
of  reformers,  including  Dean  Thomas  Forret,  Friar  John  Killore, 
Friar  John  Beverege,  and  others,  were  put  on  trial,  their  presence 
at  this  wedding  was  one  of  the  crimes  for  which  they  were  executed 
upon  Castle  Hill  at  Edinburgh.1  In  fact,  the  abrogation  of  the  rule 
of  celibacy,  in  Scotland  as  elsewhere,  was  necessarily  one  of  the 
leading  points  at  issue  between  the  Reformers  and  the  Catholics. 
Thus,  when  George  Wishart,  one  of  the  early  heretics  who  ventured 
openly  to  preach  the  Lord  Jesus,  was  seized,  in  spite  of  powerful 
protectors,  and  after  a  prolonged  captivity  was  brought  for  trial  before 
Cardinal  Beatoun  in  1545,  in  the  accusation  against  him  article  14th 
asserted,  “Thou  false  Hereticke  hast  taught  plainly  against  the  Vows 
of  Monks,  Friers,  Nuns,  and  Priests,  saying,  That  whosoever  was 
bound  to  such  like  Vows,  they  vowed  themselves  to  the  state  of  dam¬ 
nation.  Moreover,  That  it  was  lawfull  for  Priests  to  marry  wives 
and  not  to  live  sole.”  Wishart  tacitly  confessed  the  truth  of  this 
impeachment  by  rejoining — “  But  as  many  as  have  not  the  gift  of 
chastity,  nor  yet  for  the  Gospel  have  overcome  the  concupiscence  of 
the  flesh,  and  have  vowed  chastity;  ye  have  experience,  although  I 
should  hold  my  tongue,  to  what  inconveniences  they  have  exposed 
themselves.”2  He  was  accordingly  condemned  as  an  incorrigible 
heretic,  and  promptly  burnt.  Yet  when,  in  154T,  John  Knox  held 
his  disputation  writh  Dean  Wynrame  and  Friar  Arbuckle,  though 
the  nine  articles  drawn  up  for  discussion  ranged  from  the  supremacy 
of  the  pope  and  the  existence  of  purgatory  to  the  payment  of  tithes, 
the  subject  of  vows  of  chastity  Tvas  not  even  mentioned.3 

Still,  even  as  late  as  1558  the  trial  of  Walter  Mill  shows  that  the 
question  was  even  yet  agitated  in  the  controversies  between  the 
polemics  of  the  two  parties.  Mill  had  been  a  priest  and  had  mar¬ 
ried,  and  the  first  of  the  articles  of  accusation  against  him  was  that 
he  asserted  the  lawfulness  of  sacerdotal  marriage.  To  this  he  boldly 
assented,  declaring  that  he  regarded  matrimony  as  a  blessed  bond, 


1  Calderwood’s  Historie,  I.  123-4. 

2  Knox,  p.  65. — Knox’s  characteristic 

comment  on  this  is — “  When  he  had 
said  these  words,  they  were  all  dumb, 


thinking  it  better  to  have  ten  concu¬ 
bines  than  one  wife.” 

3  Calderwood  I.  231  sqq. 


THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMATION. 


511 


open  for  all  men  to  enter,  and  that  it  were  better  for  priests  to  marry 
than  to  vow  chastity  and  not  preserve  it,  as  they  were  wont  to  do. 
Condemned  to  the  stake,  the  unfortunate  old  man  commanded  the 
sympathies  of  the  people,  even  in  the  archiepiscopal  town  of  St. 
Andrews.  No  one  could  be  found  to  act  as  executioner,  until  at 
length  one  of  the  servants  of  the  archbishop  consented  to  fill  the 
abhorrent  office;  but  when  a  rope  was  sought  with  which  to  bind 
the  wretched  sufferer  to  the  stake,  no  one  would  furnish  it,  and  the 
tragedy  was  necessarily  postponed.  Equally  unsuccessful  was  the 
next  day’s  search,  until  the  archbishop,  fearing  to  lose  his  victim, 
gave  the  cords  of  his  own  pavilion,  and  the  sentence  was  carried  into 
effect.  Even  after  the  sacrifice,  the  popular  feeling  was  manifested 
by  raising  a  pile  of  stones  as  a  monument  on  the  place  of  torture, 
and  as  often  as  these  were  cast  aside  by  the  priests  they  were  replaced 
by  the  people,  until  the  followers  of  the  archbishop  carried  them  off 
by  night,  and  used  them  for  building.1 

These  incidents  show  us  that  the  question  received  its  share  of 
attention  in  the  controversy  by  which  each  side  endeavored  to  secure 
the  support  of  the  nation,  but  it  makes  no  appearance  in  public 
negotiations  and  declarations.  Thus,  in  1558,  when  the  growing 
strength  of  the  Lords  of  the  Congregation  led  the  Catholics  to  offer 
concessions,  which  were  rejected  by  the  conscious  power  of  the  Re¬ 
formers,  there  was  no  allusion  to  celibacy  on  either  side.  In  fact, 
between  the  respective  leaders,  the  questions  were  almost  purely 
personal  and  political ;  -while  among  the  conscientiously  religious 
supporters  of  either  party,  opinions  were  too  rigidly  defined  for  argu¬ 
ment.  Convictions  were  too  divergent  and  too  firm  for  compromise 
or  concession  to  be  possible,  and  Catholic  and  Calvinist  grimly 
recognized,  as  by  a  tacit  understanding,  the  alternative  of  extermina¬ 
tion.  When  the  English  alliance  at  last  drove  the  Catholics  to  the 
wall,  and  in  July,  1560,  there  assembled  the  parliament  to  which  by 
the  Articles  of  Leith  was  referred  the  duty  of  effecting  a  settlement 
of  the  kingdom,  the  vanquished  party  made  no  struggle  against  their 


1  Knox,  p.  130. — Calderwood  I.  337 
sqq. — Burnet  vol.  II.  The  implacable 
character  of  Scottish  persecution  is  aptly 
illustrated  by  a  proclamation  issued  by 
Cardinal  Beatoun  in  1540  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  spiting  Sir  Ralph  Sadler,  the 
English  envoy  at  Edinburgh.  It  was 
during  Lent,  and  the  proclamation 
declared  “that  whosoever  should  buy 


an  egg  or  eat  an  egg  within  those  dio¬ 
ceses  should  forfeit  no  less  than  his  body 
to  be  burnt  as  a  heretic,  and  all  his 
goods  confiscate  to  the  king  ” — Eroude, 
Hist.  Engl.  IY.  64. 

It  was  a  life  and  death  struggle,  in 
which  quarter  could  neither  be  asked 
nor  given. 


512 


CALVINISM. 


fate.  Such  Catholic  prelates  and  lords  as  took  their  seats  refrained 
from  all  debate,  and  allowed  the  victors  to  arrange  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  affairs  of  the  kingdom  at  their  pleasure. 

In  this  settlement,  our  subject  affords  a  curious  comparison  between 
the  English  and  Scotch  churches.  In  the  former,  at  a  period  even 
later  than  this,  it  was  considered  necessary  to  embody  a  renunciation 
of  celibacy  in  the  organic  law,  which  has  been  maintained  to  the 
present  day.  In  the  latter,  ecclesiastical  marriage  had  become 
already  so  firmly  established  in  the  minds  of  the  Reformers  that  it 
was  accepted  as  a  matter  of  course,  which  needed  no  special  con¬ 
firmation.  Although  laws  were  passed  prohibiting  the  Mass  and 
abolishing  the  supremacy  of  the  pope,  none  were  thought  necessary 
to  legalize  the  marriages  of  the  clergy.  Even  in  Knox’s  Confession 
of  Faith,  adopted  by  the  parliament  on  the  17th  of  July,  there  is  no 
direct  allusion  to  the  matter.  The  only  passage  which  can  be  con¬ 
strued  as  having  any  bearing  upon  it  occurs  in  Chapter  xiv.,  when 
considering  “What  works  are  reputed  good  before  God" — “And 
evill  works  we  affirme  not  onely  those  that  are  expressly  done  against 
God’s  commandment,  but  those  also  that  in  matters  of  religion  and 
worshipping  of  God  have  no  assurance,  but  the  invention  and  opinion 
of  man,  which  God  from  the  beginning  hath  ever  rejected,  as  by  the 
prophet  Isaiah  and  by  our  Master  Christ  Jesus  we  are  taught  in 
these  words — In  vain  do  they  worship  me ,  teaching  doctrines  which 
are  precepts  of  Men } 

Nothing  more,  in  fact,  was  needed  when  the  triumph  of  the  new 
ideas  was  so  complete  that  Knox  could  exultingly  exclaim,  “  For 
what  Adulterer,  what  Fornicator,  what  known  Masse-monger  or 
pestilent  Papist  durst  have  been  seen  in  publike  within  any  Reformed 
Town  within  this  Realme  before  that  the  Queen  arrived?  .  .  .  For 
while  the  Papists  were  so  confounded  that  none  within  the  Realme 
durst  avow  the  hearing  or  saying  of  Masse  then  the  thieves  of  Tid- 
disdale  durst  avow  their  stouth  or  stealing  in  the  presence  of  any 
upright  judge.”2  When  persecution  thus  had  changed  sides,  no 
minister  could  feel  that  his  nuptials  required  special  authorization. 
How  thoroughly,  indeed,  they  were  legitimated  is  shown  by  a  curi¬ 
ous  little  incident  occurring  in  1563.  A  minister  named  Baron 
made  complaint  to  the  General  Assembly  that  his  wife,  an  English 
woman  named  Anne  Goodacre,  “after  great  rebellions  by  her  com- 


1  Ivnox,  p.  203. 


2  Ibid.  p.  304. 


THE  SCOTTISH  REFORMATION. 


513 


mitted,”  had  left  him  and  taken  refuge  in  England,  whereupon  he 
requested  the  Assembly  to  have  her  brought  back  to  him..  Spots- 
wood,  the  Superintendent  of  Lothian,  with  Knox  and  Craig,  actually 
wrote  to  Archbishop  Parker  officially  asking  him  to  have  the  woman 
sought  for  and  sent  to  Scotland;  but  Parker,  considering  it  to  be  an 
international  question  and  beyond  his  sphere,  prudently  referred  the 
request  to  Secretary  Cecil.1 

It  were  foreign  to  our  object  to  enter  into  the  dark  details  of 
Mary’s  short  and  disastrous  reign.  The  intrigues  of  the  camarilla, 
the  boyish  weakness  of  Darnley,  the  subtlety  of  Rizzio,  and  the 
coarse  ambition  of  Huntley  and  Bothwell,  were  alike  harmless  against 
the  earnest  reverence  of  the  people  for  the  new  faith;  and  the  ex¬ 
piring  struggles  of  Catholicism  were  too  feeble  to  give  any  practical 
importance  to  the  vain  attempts  at  reaction. 


1  Strype’s  Parker,  Book  n.  ch.  xviii. 


33 


XXVIII. 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


It  has  already  been  observed  that  the  dissolute  and  unchristian 
life  of  the  priesthood  was  one  of  the  efficient  causes  which  led  to  the 
success  of  the  Reformation.  At  an  early  period  in  the  movement, 
the  Catholic  church  felt  the  necessity  of  purifying  itself,  if  it  was  to 
retain  the  veneration  of  the  people ;  and  the  veneration  of  the  people 
was  now  not  merely  a  source  of  revenue,  but  a  condition  of  the  very 
existence  of  the  stupendous  structure  reared  upon  the  credulity  of 
ages.  As  soon  as  it  became  clearly  apparent  that  Lutheranism  was 
not  to  be  suppressed  by  the  ordinary  machinery,  and  that  it  was 
spreading  with  a  rapidity  which  portended  the  wmrst  results,  an 
effort  was  made  to  remove  the  reproach  which  incorrigible  immo¬ 
rality  had  entailed  upon  the  church.  Allusion  has  been  made  above 
to  the  stringent  measures  of  reform  proclaimed  by  the  legate  Cam- 
peggi  at  Ratisbon,  in  1524,  in  which  he  acknowledged  that  the  new 
heresy  had  no  little  excuse  in  the  detestable  morals  and  abandoned 
lives  of  the  clergy — a  truth  repeatedly  admitted  by  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities.1  His  well-meant  endeavors  had  little  result,  and  we  have 


1  The  orator  of  the  council  of  Co¬ 
logne  in  1527  sharply  reminded  the 
assembled  prelates  that  they  must  set 
the  example  of  obeying  their  own 
statutes,  and  that  they  could  not  expect 
the  people  to  reverence  the  true  church 
so  long  as  it  notoriously  bade  defiance 
to  the  laws  of  God  and  man.  “  Quasi 
praescribatur  lex  cujus  sancitor  voluerit 
esse  exlex.  Parendum  enim  est  legi 
quam  quisque  sancit  .  .  .  Audis  praet- 
erea  non  licere  plurimas  habere  uxores, 
quae  animuin  tuum  alliciant;  non 
decere  domi  alere  tot  scorta  tot  Veneres, 
quae  te  continue  exedunt,  tuamque 
substantiam  disperdunt.  .  .  .  His  et 
aliis  datur  scandalum  populo  ;  praebetur 


offendiculum  vulgo,  cui  hac  tempestate 
vilet  et  contemptui  est  ordo  quilibet 
sacer.  Vilis  plebs  te  sacerdotem  nunc 
cachinnis  atque  ludibriis  incessit  et  odit, 
qui  calumniandi  ansam  ultro  praebueris. 
Dicit  namque:  tot  hie,  aut  ille,  scorta 
domi  suae  ex  patrimonio  Crucifixi  nu- 
trit,  quo  non  sordida  scorta,  sed  pau- 
peres  Christi  forent  sustentandi  ”  — 
Concil.  Colon,  ann.  1527  (Hartzheim 
VI.  210-213). 

So  at  the  council  of  Augsburg,  in 
1548,  the  orator  dwelt  upon  the  ad¬ 
vantage  which  the  heretics  derived  from 
the  sins  of  the  clergy — “  Non  estis 
nescii,  quemadmodum  nos  haeretici  apud 
populum  perpetuo  traducant :  nos 


DISORDERS  OF  THE  GALLIC  AN  CHURCH. 


515 


seen  that,  some  years  later,  Erasmus  still  urged  the  abolition  of  the 
rule  of  celibacy  as  the  only  practicable  mode  of  removing  the  scandal. 

Not  long  afterwards  the  Gallican  church  made  a  strenuous  effort 
of  the  same  nature  to  check  the  spread  of  Lutheranism.  In  1521, 
before  it  had  to  encounter  a  hostile  heresy,  the  council  of  Paris  had 
deplored  the  pervading  corruptions  with  exceeding  candor.  The 
condition  of  conventual  discipline  was  such  as  to  threaten  the  very 
existence  of  the  system,  and  the  customary  denunciations  of  inerad¬ 
icable  abuses  were  freely  published.1  In  1528  the  Cardinal-legate 
Duprat,  Chancellor  of  France,  held  a  council  in  Paris,  where  he  con¬ 
demned,  seriatim,  the  new  doctrines  as  heresies,  and  elevated  the  rule 
of  celibacy  to  the  dignity  of  a  point  of  faith.2  He  also  caused  the 
adoption  of  a  series  of  canons  designed  to  remove  from  the  church 
the  disgrace  caused  by  the  laxity  of  clerical  morals  and  manners. 
The  bishops  were  instructed  to  enforce  the  decrees  of  the  councils 
and  of  the  fathers  until  concubinage  and  incontinence  should  be  com¬ 
pletely  exterminated,  and  a  rule  was  laid  down  which  would  have 
been  eventually  effectual  if  conscientiously  carried  out.  No  one  was 
thereafter  to  be  admitted  to  holy  orders  without  written  testimony  as 
to  his  age  and  moral  character  from  his  parish  priest,  substantiated 
by  the  oaths  of  two  or  three  approved  witnesses.3  At  the  same  time 
similar  councils  were  held  at  Bourges  by  the  Cardinal  Archbishop 
Tournon,  and  at  Lyons  by  Claude,  Bishop  of  Macon.  To  what 
extent  these  excellent  rules  were  put  in  force  may  be  guessed  by  a 
description  of  the  French  clergy  in  1560,  as  portrayed  by  Monluc, 
Bishop  of  Valence,  in  a  speech  before  the  royal  council.  The  parish 
priests  were  for  the  most  part  engrossed  in  worldly  pursuits,  and  had 
obtained  their  preferment  by  illicit  means,  nor  did  there  seem  much 
prospect  of  an  improvement  so  long  as  the  prelates  were  in  the  habit 
of  bestowing  the  benefices  within  their  gift  on  their  lackeys,  barbers, 


scortatores,  nos  ambitiosos,  nos  avaros, 
nos  ignavos,  et  rudes  esse,  nos  otio 
semper,  luxui  et  ventri  servire,  identi- 
dem  vociferantur  .  .  .  Superbe  itaque 
illi :  sed  utinam  non  nimium  sa?pe 
vere :  nam  si  vera  potius  hoc  loco, 
quam  plausibilia,  dicenda  sint;  negare 
certe  non  possumus,  quin  maximam  ad 
nos  accusandos  occasionem  sa?pe  de- 
derimus”  —  Concil.  Augustan,  ann. 
1548  (Hartzheim  VI.  388). 

1  Concil.  Parisiens.  ann.  1521  (Mar¬ 
lene  Ampl.  Coll.  VIII.  1018). 


2  Quisquis  igitur  contra  sacrorum 
conciliorum  et  patrum  decreta,  sacer- 
dotes,  diaconos  aut  subdiaconos  lege 
coelibatus  non  teneri  docuerit  aut  libe- 
ras  illis  concesserit  nuptias,  inter 
hsereticos,  omni  tergiversatione  re- 
jecta  numeretur. — Concil.  Paris,  ann. 
1528,  Decret.  8. 

This,  I  think,  is  the  first  authorita¬ 
tive  promulgation  of  Damiani’s  doc¬ 
trine,  which,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see, 
was  adopted  and  extended  by  the 
council  of  Trent. 

3  Ibid.  can.  3,  27. 


516 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


cooks,  and  other  serving  men,  rendering  the  ecclesiastics  as  a  body 
an  object  of  contempt  to  the  people.1  We  need,  therefore,  not  be 
surprised  to  find  in  the  councils  of  the  period  a  repetition  of  all  the 
old  injunctions,  showing  that  the  maintenance  of  improper  consorts 
and  the  disgrace  of  priestly  families  were  undiminished  evils.2  This 
description  of  the  French  clergy  is  most  emphatically  extended  to 
the  whole  church  in  the  project  for  reformation  drawn  up  by  order 
of  Paul  III.  in  1538,  and  to  these  evils  are  attributed  the  innumer¬ 
able  scandals  which  afflicted  the  faithful,  as  well  as  the  contempt 
in  which  the  ecclesiastical  body  was  held  and  the  virtual  extinction 
of  all  reverence  for  the  services  of  religion.3 

In  1530  Clement  VII.  addressed  himself  vigorously  to  the  task 
of  putting  an  end  to  the  scandalous  practice  of  hereditary  transmis¬ 
sion  of  benefices,  which  he  describes  as  almost  universal.  A  special 
Bull  was  issued,  prohibiting  the  children  of  priests  or  monks  from 
enjoying  any  preferment  in  their  father’s  benefices,  and,  recognizing 
that  the  Roman  curia  was  one  of  the  chief  obstacles  to  all  reform,  he 
provided  that  if  he  or  his  successors  should  grant  dispensations  per¬ 
mitting  such  infraction  of  the  canons,  they  should  be  considered  as 
issued  unwittingly,  and  be  held  null  and  void.4  Like  so  many  others, 
this  Bull  seems  to  have  been  forgotten  almost  as  soon  as  issued,  and 
the  pecuniary  needs  of  the  Roman  court  rendered  it  unable  to  abandon 
so  lucrative  a  source  of  revenue.  Even  as  soon  as  1538  the  cardinals 
to  whom  Paul  III.  committed  the  task  of  drawing  up  the  project  of 
reformation  cautiously  intimate  that  they  hear  of  such  dispensations 
being  granted,  and  to  this  they  attribute  a  large  share  of  the  troubles 
of  the  church  and  the  enmity  felt  towards  the  Holy  See.5  This 
warning  passed  unheeded,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  in  1559  a  Scottish 
council  prayed  the  queen-regent  to  use  her  influence  with  the  pope  to 
prevent  dispensations  being  granted  to  enable  illegitimate  children 
to  hold  preferment  in  their  father’s  benefices,6  while  in  1562  the  fre- 


1  Pierre  de  la  Place,  Estat  de  Pel.  et 

Rep.  Liv.  hi. 

3  Concil.  Narbonnens.  ann.  1551 
can.  22  (Harduin.  X.  408). 

3  Consilium  de  Emend.  Eccles.  (Le 
Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  II. 
598). 

4  Bull,  ad  Canonum  (Mag.  Bull. 
Roman.  Ed.  1692,  I.  682). 

Alexander  III.,  in  prohibiting  the 
sons  of  priests  from  enjoying  their 

fathers’  benefices,  had  permitted  it  if 


a  third  party  intervened,  and  a  dispen¬ 
sation  for  the  irregularity  were  obtained. 
The  letter  of  this  law  was  frequently 
observed,  but  its  spirit  eluded  by 
nominally  passing  the  preferment 
through  the  hands  of  a  man  of  straw, 
and  it  was  this  abuse  which  Clement 
desired  to  eradicate. 

5  Consilium  de  Emend.  Eccles.  (Le 
Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  II. 

599). 

6  Wilkins  I\T.  209. 


PAPAL  DISPENSATIONS  —  SPAIN. 


517 


quency  and  readiness  with  which  such  dispensations  were  still  obtained 
are  enumerated  in  a  list  of  abuses  laid  before  the  council  of  Trent  by 
Sebastian  King,  of  Portugal,  as  one  of  the  matters  requiring  refor¬ 
mation  by  the  supreme  power  of  the  council.1  To  this  and  other 
similar  appeals  the  papal  legates  loftily  replied  that  laws  were  not  to 
be  prescribed  to  the  Ploly  See;2  and  the  motive  for  the  refusal  is 
easily  comprehended  when  we  see  that  in  the  “Taxes  of  the  Peni¬ 
tentiary”  the  price  for  a  dispensation  admitting  the  bastard  of  a 
priest  to  holy  orders  was  a  ducat  and  a  carlino.3 

In  Spain,  the  most  dangerous  opponent  of  the  Reformation,  Igna¬ 
tius  Loyola,  succeeded  to  some  extent  in  repressing  the  public  and 
unblushing  manifestation  of  concubinage.  His  biographer  states  that 
the  female  companions  of  the  Peninsular  clergy  were  accustomed  to 
pledge  their  faith  to  their  consorts,  as  if  united  by  the  marriage-tie, 
and  that  they  wore  the  distinguishing  costume  of  married  women, 
as  though  glorying  in  their  shame.4  Scandalized  by  this,  on  his 
return  to  his  native  land,  in  1535,  Ignatius  exerted  himself  to  abolish 
it,  together  with  other  priestly  peccadilloes,  and  his  influence  was 
sufficient  to  procure  the  enactment  and  enforcement  by  the  temporal 
authorities  of  sundry  laws  which  relieved  the  Spanish  church  from 
so  great  an  opprobrium.5  Yet,  though  this  semi-authorized  cohabi¬ 
tation  may  have  been  checked,  the  custom  of  notorious  concubinage 
continued  to  flourish.  Bernardino  Diaz  de  Luco,  a  Spanish  jurist, 
not  long  afterwards,  deplores  the  frequency  of  the  vice,  but  warns 
judges  that  they  should  not  be  over-severe  in  repressing  it,  since  so 
few  are  found  guiltless,  and  there  is  danger  that  those  who  are 
restrained  from  it  may  be  forced  into  darker  sins.6 


1  Le  Plat,  Y.  88.  The  opinion  which 
was  held  of  the  venalitv  of  the  Roman 
Court  in  such  matters  is  forcibly  ex¬ 
pressed  in  the  instructions  given  to 
Lanssac,  the  French  ambassador  at 
Trent.  He  is  ordered  to  press  the  abo¬ 
lition  of  the  Papal  power  of  dispen¬ 
sation  “  attendu  que  nul  n’en  est  refuse 
s’il  a  argent.” — Ibid.  p.  158. 

2  Ejus  sanctitati  lex  non  sit  praascrib- 
enda. — Ibid.  p.  385. 

3  Tax.  Sac.  Poenitent.  Ed.  Gibbings, 
p.  13. — This  was  only  one  carlino  (the 
tenth  part  of  a  ducat,  equal  to  about 
fourpence),  more  than  the  charge  for 
the  bastard  of  a  layman. 

4  In  1526  or  1527,  the  authorities  of 


Seville  endeavored  to  regulate  this  by 
forbidding  certain  articles  of  dress  to 
concubines,  whether  of  ecclesiastics  or 
laymen. — Wahu,  Le  Pope  et  la  Societe 
Moderne,  Paris,  1879  p.  395. 

5  Ribadeneira  Yit.  Ignat.  Loyol. 
Lib.  ir.  cap.  v. 

Ribadeneira  was  one  of  Loyola’s 
early  disciples,  and  is  therefore  good 
authority.  His  description  would  show 
that  permanent  unions  were  formed, 
respected  by  the  people  but  not  recog¬ 
nized  by  the  church,  in  the  same  man- 
nor  as  those  alluded  to  by  Bishop 
Pelayo,  two  centuries  earlier. 

6  Diaz  de  Luco,  Practica  Criminalis 
Canonica  cap.  lxxiii.  (Yenetiis,  1543). 


518 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


About  the  same  time,  Hermann  von  Wied,  Archbishop  of  Cologne, 
undertook  the  reformation  of  his  extensive  diocese.  He  assembled  a 
council  which  issued  a  series  of  275  canons,  prescribing  minutely  the 
functions,  duties,  and  obligations  of  all  grades  of  the  clergy.  As 
regards  the  delicate  subject  of  concubinage,  he  contented  himself 
■with  quoting  the  Nicene  canon  prohibiting  the  residence  of  women 
not  nearly  connected  by  blood,  and  added  that  if  the  degeneracy  of 
the  times  prevented  the  enforcement  of  a  regulation  so  strict,  at  all 
events  he  forbade  the  companionship  of  females  obnoxious  to  sus¬ 
picion.1  The  good  bishop  himself  could  hardly  have  expected  that 
so  mild  an  allocution  would  have  much  effect  upon  a  perverse  and 
hardened  generation. 

In  1537,  Matthew,  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  assembled  his  pro¬ 
vincial  synod,  which,  recognizing  the  urgent  necessity  of  preserving 
the  church  and  protecting  the  people,  adopted  a  series  of  reformatory 
canons.  Apparently  afraid  of  promulgating  them,  however,  it  was 
resolved  to  suppress  them  for  the  present  under  the  pretext  that  the 
approaching  general  council  would  regulate  the  discipline  of  the 
church  at  large,  and  the  archbishop  contented  himself  with  a  pastoral 
letter  addressed  to  his  suffragans,  in  which  he  urged  upon  them  to 
consider  the  contamination  to  which  the  laity  were  exposed  through 
the  vices  of  their  pastors,  and  timidly  suggested  that,  if  the  clergy 
could  not  restrain  their  passions,  they  should  at  all  events  indulge 
them  secretly,  so  that  scandal  might  be  avoided  and  the  punishment 
of  their  transgressions  be  left  to  an  avenging  God.2 

Even  in  the  council  of  Trent  itself,  the  Bishop  of  St.  Mark,  in 
opening  its  proceedings  with  a  speech,  January  6th,  1546,  drew  a 
fearful  picture  of  the  corruption  of  the  world,  which  had  reached  a 
degree  that  posterity  might  possibly  equal  but  not  exceed.  This  he 
assured  the  assembled  fathers  was  attributable  solely  to  the  wicked¬ 
ness  of  the  pastors,  who  drew  their  flocks  with  them  into  the  abyss 
of  sin.  The  Lutheran  heresy  had  been  provoked  by  their  own  guilt, 
and  its  suppression  was  only  to  be  hoped  for  by  their  own  reforma¬ 
tion.3  At  a  later  session,  the  Bavarian  orator,  August  Baumgartner, 
told  the  assembled  fathers  that  the  progress  of  the  Reformation  was 


1  Concil.  Coloniens.  ann.  1536,  P.  II. 
c.  28.  Six  years  later,  in  1542,  Bishop 
Hermann  embraced  Lutheranism,  mar¬ 
ried,  and  in  1546  was  driven  from  his 
see  and  retired  to  his  county  of  Wied, 
where  he  died  some  years  afterwards, 
at  the  ripe  age  of  80  years. 


2  Concil.  Salisburg.  XLI.  (Dalham, 
Concil.  Salisburgens.  pp.  296-322). 

3  Acta  Concil.  Trident.  (Martene 
Am  pi.  Coll.  (VIII.  1063-9). 


DEMAND  FOR  THE  COUNCIL. 


519 


attributable  to  tbe  scandalous  lives  of  the  clergy,  whose  excesses  he 
could  not  describe  without  offending  the  chaste  ears  of  his  auditory. 
He  even  asserted  that  out  of  a  hundred  priests  there  were  not  more 
than  three  or  four  who  were  not  either  married  or  concubinarians1 — 
a  statement  repeated  in  a  consultation  on  the  subject  of  ecclesiastical 
reform  drawn  up  in  1562  by  order  of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand,  with 
the  addition  that  the  clergy  would  rather  see  the  whole  structure  of 
the  church  destroyed  than  submit  to  even  the  most  moderate  measure 
of  reform.2 


It  is  not  to  be  wondered  therefore  that  the  Christian  world  had 
long  and  earnestly  demanded  the  convocation  of  an  oecumenic  council 
which  should  represent  all  parties,  should  have  full  powers  to  recon¬ 
cile  all  differences,  and  should  give  to  the  ancient  church  the  purifi¬ 
cation  thus  recognized  as  the  only  efficient  means  of  healing  the 
schism.  This  was  a  remedy  to  the  last  degree  distasteful  to  the  Holy 
See.  The  recollections  of  Constance  and  Bale  were  full  of  pregnant 
warnings  as  to  the  almost  inevitable  antagonism  between  the  Vice¬ 
gerent  of  Christ  and  an  independent  representative  body,  believing 
itself  to  act  under  the  direct  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  claiming 
autocratic  supremacy  in  the  church,  and  convoked  for  the  special 
purpose  of  reforming  abuses,  the  most  of  which  were  fruitful  sources 
of  revenue  to  the  papal  court.  Such  a  body,  if  assembled  in  Ger¬ 
many,  would  be  the  pope’s  master ;  if  in  Italy,  his  tool ;  and  it 
behooved  him  to  act  warily  if  he  desired  to  meet  the  unanimous 
demand  of  Christendom  without  risking  the  sacrifice  of  his  most 
cherished  prerogatives.  Had  the  council  been  called  in  the  early 
days  of  the  Reformation,  it  could  hardly  have  prevented  the  separa¬ 
tion  of  the  churches ;  yet,  in  the  temper  which  then  existed,  it  would 
probably  have  effected  as  thorough  a  purification  of  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment  as  was  possible  in  so  corrupt  an  age.  By  delaying  it 
until  the  reactionary  movement  had  fairly  set  in,  the  chances  of 
troublesome  puritans  gaining  the  ascendency  were  greatly  diminished, 
and  the  papal  court  exposed  itself  to  little  danger  when,  under  the 
urgent  pressure  of  the  emperor,  it  at  length,  in  1536,  proposed  to 
convoke  the  long  desired  assembly  at  Mantua.3 


1  Sarpi,  Istor.  del  Concilio  Trident. 
Lib.  vi.  (Ed.  Helmstad.  II.  140). — Cf. 
Le  Plat,  V.  337-8. 

2  Le  Plat,  V.  235. 


3  Charles  was  careful  to  put  on 
record  his  ceaseless  endeavors  with 
Clement  and  Paul  to  obtain  the  convo¬ 
cation  of  a  council  and  the  numberless 
promises  made  to  him,  for  the  evasion 


520 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


A  place  so  completely  under  papal  influence  was  not  likely  to 
meet  the  views  of  the  opposition,  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  both 
the  Lutherans  and  Henry  VIII.  refused  to  connect  themselves  with 
such  a  council.  The  latter,  indeed,  in  his  epistle  of  April  8,  1538, 
to  Charles  V.,  expressed  himself  more  forcibly  than  elegantly: — 
“Nowe,  if  he  [the  pope]  calle  us  to  one  of  his  owne  townes,  we  be 
afraid  to  be  at  suche  an  hostes  table.  We  saye,  Better  to  ryse  a 
hungred,  then  to  goo  thense  with  oure  belly es  fulle.”1  The  formality 
of  its  opening,  May  17th,  1537,  was  therefore  an  empty  ceremony; 
its  transfer  to  Vicenza  was  little  more;  and,  as  no  delegates  presented 
themselves  up  to  the  1st  of  May,  1538,  it  was  prorogued  until 
Easter,  1539,  with  the  promise  of  selecting  a  satisfactory  place  for 
the  meeting.  The  pressure  still  continued  until,  in  May,  1542, 
Paul  finally  convoked  it  to  assemble  at  Trent.  The  Reformers  were 
no  better  satisfied  than  before.  They  had  so  long  professed  their 
readiness  to  submit  all  the  questions  in  dispute  to  a  free  and  unbiased 
general  council,  that  they  could  not  refuse  absolutely  to  countenance 
it ;  but  they  were  now  so  completely  established  as  a  separate  organ¬ 
ization,  that  they  had  little  to  hope  and  everything  to  fear  from  the 
appeal  which  they  had  themselves  provoked,  and  nothing  which  Rome 
could  now  offer  would  have  brought  them  into  willing  attendance 
upon  such  a  body.2  They  accordingly  kept  aloof,  and  on  the  assem¬ 
bling  of  the  council,  November  22d,  1542,  its  numbers  were  so  scanty 
that  it  could  accomplish  nothing,  and  it  was  accordingly  suspended 
in  July,  1543.  When  again  convoked,  March  15th,  1545,  but  twenty 
bishops  and  a  few  ambassadors  were  present ;  these  waited  with 
what  patience  they  might  command  for  accessions,  which  were  so 
tardy  in  arriving  that  when  at  length  the  assembly  was  formally 
opened,  on  the  13th  of  December,  the  number  had  increased  by  only 
five.  For  fifteen  months  the  council  continued  its  sessions,  completely 
under  the  control  of  the  pope,  and  occupied  solely  with  measures 
designed  to  draw  the  line  between  the  Catholic  and  the  Reformed 
churches  more  sharply  than  ever. 

The  appeals  of  the  German  bishops  and  of  the  imperial  ambass- 


of  which  reasons  wore  always  found. 
— Commentaires  de  Charles-Quint,  pp. 
9G-7  (Paris,  1862). 

1  Select.  Ilarl.  Miscell.,  Londonj 
1793,  p.  137. 

2  The  temper  with  which  the  Pro¬ 
testants  now  viewed  the  council  is  well 


expressed  in  a  letter  from  Aonio  Palea- 
rio  written  in  1542  or  1545,  from  Rome 
to  Luther,  Melanchthon,  Bucer,  and 
Calvin,  urging  them  by  no  means  to 
sanction  the  assembly  with  their  pres¬ 
ence — (Published  by  Illgen,  4to.  Leip¬ 
zig,  1833). 


SECOND  CONVOCATION  AT  TRENT. 


521 


adors  for  some  effective  efforts  at  reform  became  at  length  too 
pressing,  and  to  evade  them,  in  March,  154T,  the  council  was  trans¬ 
ferred  to  Bologna,  against  the  earnest  protest  of  the  emperor  and 
the  Spaniards,  who  refused  to  follow.1  At  Bologna  little  was  done 
except  to  dispute  over  the  sharp  protests  of  the  emperor  and  to  ad¬ 
journ  the  council  from  time  to  time,  until,  after  falling  into  universal 
contempt,  it  was  suspended  in  1549.  Julius  III.,  who  received  the 
tiara  on  the  22d  of  February,  1550,  signalized  his  accession  by  con¬ 
voking  it  again  at  Trent ;  and  there  it  once  more  assembled  on  the 
1st  of  May,  1551. 

At  that  time  Lutheranism  in  Germany  was  under  the  heel  of 
Charles  V. ;  Maurice  of  Saxony  was  ripening  his  schemes  of  revolt, 
and  concealing  them  with  the  dexterity  in  which  he  was  unrivalled ; 
it  was  the  policy  of  both  that  Protestant  theologians  should  take  part 
in  the  discussions — of  the  one,  that  they  should  there  receive  their 
sentence ;  of  the  other,  that  their  presence  might  assist  in  cloaking 
his  designs.  The  flight  from  Innspruck,  followed  by  the  Transaction 
of  Passau,  changed  the  face  of  affairs.  The  Lutheran  doctors  re¬ 
joicingly  shook  the  dust  from  their  feet  as  they  departed  from  Trent, 
complaining  that  they  had  been  treated  as  criminals  on  trial,  not  as 
venerable  members  of  a  body  assembled  to  decide  the  gravest  ques¬ 
tions  relating  to  this  life  and  that  to  come.  Other  symptoms  of 
revolt  among  the  Catholic  nations  wrere  visible,  and  on  the  28th  of 
April,  1552,  the  council  again  broke  up.2 

Ten  years  passed  away ;  the  faithful  impatiently  demanded  the 
continuation  of  the  work  which  had  only  been  commenced,  and  at 
last  the  pressure  became  so  strong  that  Pius  IV.  was  obliged  to  re¬ 
assemble  the  council.3  His  Bull  bears  date  November,  1560,  but  it 


1  There  is  something  very  amusingly 
suggestive  in  the  guarded  manner  in 
which  Charles  alludes  to  the  translation 
of  the  Council — “  0  ditto  Papa  Paulo 
por  respeitos,  que  o  moveram  (os  quaes 
Deus  permitta  que  forsem  bons)  tratton 
de  avocar  e  transferir  a  Bolonha77 — 
(Commentaires,  p.  98). 

2  That  the  complaints  of  the  Pro¬ 
testants  were  well  founded,  is  evident 
from  the  secret  instructions  given,  Feb. 
20th,  1552,  by  Julius  III.  to  the  Bishop 

of  Monte  Fiascone,  when  sending  him 
as  legate  to  Charles  V.  He  was  to  ex¬ 
plain  to  the  emperor  that  the  Council 
would  not  discuss  the  propositions  of 


the  heretics  u  nimirum  quod  judex  non 
respondet  parti,  ne  ex  judice  se  partem, 
constituat and  he  is  further  to  explain 
that  “petentes  commune  concilium 
hseretici  et  schismatici  repellendi  sunt 
a  onciliis  universalibus  ....  nullo 
modo  commmunicandum  esse  concilium 
cum  hsereticis  et  schismaticis,  qui  sunt 
extra  ecclesiam  ....  sed  bene  possunt 
admitti,  ut  possint  interesse  pro  con- 
vincendis  etiam  pluries  eorum  erroribus.  7 7 
— Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident. 
T.  IV.  p.  534-5. 

3  The  feeling  entertained  by  Pius 
towards  the  council  is  shown  by  his 
remark,  in  Dec.  1501,  to  M.  de  Lisle, 


522 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


was  not  until  twenty  years  after  Trent  had  witnessed  the  first  con¬ 
vocation  that  the  holy  men  again  gathered  within  its  walls,  and  on 
the  18th  of  January,  1562,  the  council  resumed  its  oft-interrupted 
sessions.  The  States  of  the  Augsburg  Confession  had  been  politely 
invited  to  participate  in  the  proceedings,  but  they  declined  with  the 
scantest  of  courtesy.1 

During  this  long-protracted  farce  there  were  times  when  those  who 
sincerely  desired  the  restoration  of  the  church  could  not  restrain  their 
impatience.  In  1536,  Paul  III.,  who  earnestly  admitted  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  some  reform,  called  to  his  aid  nine  of  his  prelates  most 
eminent  for  virtue  and  piety,  as  a  commission  to  prepare  a  scheme 
for  internal  reformation.2  According  to  a  papal  historian,  his  object 
in  this  was  to  stop  the  mouths  of  the  heretics  who  found  in  the 
Roman  court  an  inexhaustible  subject  of  declamation.3  For  two 
years  the  commission  labored  at  its  work,  and  finally  produced  the 
“  Consilium  de  emendanda  ecclesia,”  to  which  allusion  has  been  made 
above. 

The  stern  and  unbending  Cardinal  Caraffa  was  head  of  the  com¬ 
mission,  assisted  by  such  men  as  Contarini,  Sadoleto,  and  Reginald 
Pole.  They  seem  to  have  been  inspired  with  a  sincere  desire  to  root 
out  the  chief  abuses  which  gave  such  power  to  the  assaults  of  the 
Protestants,  and  the  result  of  their  labors  affords  us  a  picture  of 
ecclesiastical  corruptions  almost  as  damaging  to  the  church  as  the 
complaints  of  the  Diet  of  Niirnburg.  As  regards  celibacy,  they 
were  disposed  to  make  no  concession ;  indeed,  they  protest  against 
the  facility  with  which  men  in  holy  orders  were  able  to  purchase 
from  the  Roman  curia  dispensations  to  marry.  It  is  significant, 
however,  that  they  had  so  little  confidence  in  the  possibility  of  puri¬ 
fying  the  religious  orders  that  they  actually  recommended  the  aboli- 


the  French  ambassador,  that  it  had 
been  called  simply  for  the  benefit  of 
France — “  dautant  que  ledit  concile, 
qui  cst  de  peu  de  besoin  pour  le  reste 
de  la  chrestiente,  superflu  aux  Catholi- 
ques  et  non  desire  des  papes  ”  (Le 
Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  IV. 
742). 


1  The  characteristic  correspondence 
is  in  Le  Plat,  IV.  678-87. 

2  Charles  declares  that  at  the  com¬ 
mencement  of  his  pontificate  Paul  was 
earnestly  desirous  of  reforming  the 
abuses  of  the  church,  but  that  his  zeal 
rapidly  diminished  and  he  followed  the 


example  of  Clement  in  contenting  him¬ 
self  with  empty  promises. — “Com  tudo 
despois  com  o  tempo  aquellas  mostras  e 
ardor  primeiro  se  foi  esfriando,  e  se- 
guindo  os  passos  e  exemplo  do  Papa 
Clemente,  com  boas  palavras  prolongon 
e  entretene  sempre  a  convo^ab  e  ajun- 
tamento  do  concilio  ”  (Commentaires, 
p.  97). 

3  Per  serrar  la  bocca  agl’  heretici  i 
quali  non  facevano  altro  in  voce  et  in 
scritto  che  dir  male  della  corte  di 
Roma. — Carraciolo,  Vita  di  Paolo  IV. 
MS.  Br.  Mus.  (Young,  Life  and  Times 
of  Aonio  Paleario,  I.  261). 


PROJECTS  OF  REFORM. 


528 


tion  of  the  whole  monastic  system.  To  prevent  individual  cases  of 
suffering  they  proposed  that  the  convents  should  not  be  immediately 
abolished,  but  that  all  novices  should  be  discharged  and  no  more  be 
admitted,  thus  allowing  the  orders  to  die  out  gradually,  as  had  been 
done  in  Saxony ;  and  meanwhile  they  urged  that,  to  prevent  further 
scandals,  all  nunneries  should  be  removed  from  the  supervision  and 
direction  of  monks.1  The  “  Consilium,”  in  fact,  was  so  candid  a 
confession  of  most  of  the  abuses  charged  upon  the  church  by  the  re¬ 
formers  that  Luther  forthwith  translated  it  and  published  it  with  a 
commentary,  as  an  effective  pamphlet  in  aid  of  his  cause.  Caraffa 
himself,  after  he  had  attained  the  papacy,  under  the  name  of  Paul 
IV.,  quietly  put  his  own  work,  in  1559,  into  the  Index  Expurgator- 
ius.2 

The  changes  recommended  in  the  “Consilium”  attacked  too  many 
vested  interests  for  Paul  III.,  however  earnest  himself,  to  be  able 
to  give  it  effect.  The  project  therefore  was  dropped  and  only  re¬ 
sulted  in  rendering  still  more  clamorous  the  call  for  a  reform  in  the 
head  and  members  of  the  church.  As,  moreover,  it  had  shown  the 
powerlessness  of  the  papacy  to  overcome  acknowledged  abuses,  the 
only  hope  of  a  radical  change,  such  as  was  needful,  was  seen  to  lie 
in  the  untrammelled  debates  of  a  great  assembly,  which  should  meet 
as  a  parliament  of  the  nations ;  and  the  prospect  of  this  grew  more 
and  more  distant.  While  the  project  of  transferring  the  council 
from  Trent  was  being  matured,  it  occurred  to  the  papal  court  that 
possibly  the  objections  to  that  measure  and  the  pressure  on  the 
council  for  a  thorough  reformation  might  be  averted  by  showing  a 
disposition  on  the  part  of  Rome  to  undertake  the  task  of  cleansing 
the  Augean  stable.  It  was  also  recognized  as  an  important  gain 
if  the  council  could  be  confined  to  the  harmless  task  of  defining 
questions  of  faith,  while  the  substantial  powers  involved  in  reforming 
the  corruptions  of  the  church  could  be  claimed  and  exercised  by  the 
Pope.  Accordingly  Pius  III.  drew  up  an  elaborate  Bull  designed 
to  limit  some  of  the  more  flagrant  pecuniary  abuses  which  existed, 
and  exhorting  the  bishops  to  correct  the  morals  of  their  subordinates. 
This  was  sent  to  the  legates  at  Trent,  but  they  and  their  confidants 


1  Concilium  de  Emendanda  Ecclesia 
(Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident. 
II.  601,  602). 

2  It  has  been  customarily  stated  by 
Catholic  writers  that  this  proceeding  of 


Paul  IV.  was  directed  not  against  his 
own  work,  but  against  the  heretically 
commentated  editions,  but  this,  I  be¬ 
lieve,  has  been  refuted  by  Schelhorn. 
See  Gibbings’s  “  Taxes  of  the  Peniten- 
|  tiary,”  p.  xlix. 


524 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


unanimously  agreed  that,  in  the  existing  temper  of  the  council,  the 
promulgation  of  such  a  document  would  be  in  the  highest  degree 
imprudent.  It  was  accordingly  suppressed,  and  has  only  seen  the 
light  within  the  present  century.1  In  its  failure  the  church  lost 
but  little,  for  it  touched  the  evils  of  the  time  with  a  tender  and  hesi¬ 
tating  hand,  and  would  have  proved  utterly  inefficacious. 

At  length,  when  shortly  afterwards  the  unmannerly  urgency  of  the 
Germans,  clamoring  for  decided  measures  of  reform,  w^as  met  by  the 
translation  of  the  council  to  Bologna  in  154T,  and  men  despaired  of 
further  results  from  it,  Charles  Y.  resolved  to  take  the  matter  into 
his  own  hands,  and  to  effect,  for  his  own  dominions  at  least,  that 
which  had  been  vainly  expected  of  the  council  for  Christendom. 
The  “Interim,”  which  has  already  been  alluded  to,  was  intended  to 
answer  this  purpose  as  far  as  Lutheranism  was  concerned,  in  healing 
the  breach  of  religion.  The  other  great  object  of  the  council,  the 
restoration  of  the  neglected  discipline  of  the  church,  he  attempted 
to  effect  by  means  of  the  secular  authority  of  the  empire  acting  on 
the  regular  machinery  of  the  Teutonic  ecclesiastical  establishment. 
How  utterly  neglected  that  discipline  had  become  is  inferable  from 
an  expression  in  the  important  and  carefully  drawn  project  which 
had  been  laid  by  Charles  before  the  Diet  of  Batisbon  in  1541,  to 
the  effect  that  if  the  canon  requiring  celibacy  was  to  be  enforced,  it 
would  be  necessary  also  to  revive  those  canons  which  punished  incon¬ 
tinence,  thus  admitting  that  there  existed  no  check  whatever  upon 
immorality.2 

To  accomplish  this  desirable  revival  of  discipline  he  accordingly 
caused  the  adoption  by  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  of  a  code  of  reforma¬ 
tion,  well  adapted,  if  enforced,  to  restore  the  long-forgotten  purity 
of  the  church,  while  at  the  same  time  it  acknowledged  that  the  de¬ 
generacy  of  the  times  rendered  impossible  the  resuscitation  of  the 
ancient  canons  in  their  strictness.  Thus,  after  reciting  the  canon  of 
Neocmsarea  (see  p.  51),  it  adds,  that  as  such  severity  was  now  im¬ 
practicable,  those  in  holy  orders  convicted  of  impurity  should  be 
separated  from  their  concubines,  and  visited  with  suspension  from 
function  and  benefice  proportioned  to  the  gravity  of  the  offence.  A 
repetition  of  the  fault  was  punishable  with  increased  severity,  and 
incorrigible  sinners  who  were  found  to  be  incapable  of  reformation 


1  Published  by  Clausen,  Copenhagen,  1829. 

2  Lib.  ad  Ration.  Concord,  ineundam  Art.  xxn.  \  13  (Goldast.  II.  199). 


EFFORTS  OF  CHARLES  V. 


525 


were  finally  to  be  deprived  of  their  benefices.  As  concubines  were 
threatened  with  immediate  excommunication,  it  is  evident  that  a 
severity  was  designed  towards  them  which  was  not  ventured  on  with 
respect  to  their  more  guilty  partners.  Relaxation  of  the  rules  is 
also  observable  in  the  section  which,  despite  the  Nicene  canon,  per¬ 
mitted  the  residence  of  women  over  forty  years  of  age,  whose  char¬ 
acter  and  conduct  relieved  them  from  suspicion.1  The  imperative 
injunctions  of  chastity  laid  upon  the  regular  clergy,  canons,  and 
nuns,  show  not  only  the  determination  to  remove  the  prevailing 
scandals,  but  also  the  magnitude  and  extent  of  the  evil.2 

Nor  was  this  all.  Local  councils  were  ordered  for  the  purpose  of 
embodying  these  decrees  in  their  statutes,  and  of  carrying  out  with 
energy  the  reformation  so  earnestly  desired.  Thus,  in  November, 
1548,  about  five  months  after  the  Diet,  a  synod  assembled  at  Augs¬ 
burg,  which  inveighed  bitterly  against  the  unclerical  dress  and  pomp 
of  the  clergy,  their  habits  of  drunkenness,  gluttony,  licentiousness, 
tavern-lounging,  and  general  disregard  of  discipline ;  and  adopted  a 
canon  embracing  the  regulations  enacted  by  the  emperor.3  The 
Archbishop  of  Treves  did  not  wait  for  his  synod,  but  issued,  October 
30th,  a  mandate  especially  directed  against  concubinary  priests,  in 
which  he  announced  his  intention  of  carrying  out  the  reform  com¬ 
manded  by  Charles.  He  could  find  no  reason  more  self-evident  for 
the  dislike  and  contempt  felt  by  the  people  for  so  many  of  the  clergy 
than  the  immorality  of  their  lives,  differing  little,  except  in  legality, 
from  open  marriage.  “  This  vice,  existing  everywhere  throughout 
our  diocese,  in  consequence  of  the  license  of  the  times  and  the 
neglect  of  the  officials,  we  must  eradicate.  Therefore  all  of  you, 
of  what  grade  soever,  shall  dismiss  your  concubines  within  nine  days, 
removing  them  beyond  the  bounds  of  your  parishes,  and  be  no  longer 
seen  to  associate  with  loose  and  wanton  women.  Those  who  neglect 
this  order  shall  be  suspended  from  office  and  benefice,  their  concu¬ 
bines  shall  be  excommunicated,  and  they  themselves  be  brought 
before  our  synod  to  be  presently  held.”4 

These  were  brave  words,  but  when,  some  three  weeks  later,  the 
synod  was  assembled,  and  the  malefactors  perchance  brought  before 
it,  the  good  bishop  found  apparently  that  his  flock  was  not  disposed 
to  submit  quietly  to  the  curtailment  of  privileges  which  had  almost 

1  Formul.  Reformat,  cap.  xvn.  g  4  3  Synod.  Augustan,  ann.  1548  c.  10. 

(Goldast.  II.  335).  4  Synod.  Trevirens.  ann.  1548. 

2  Ibid.  cap.  hi.  §  1,  cap.  Y.  \  \  7,  9. 


526 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


become  imprescriptible.  His  tone  accordingly  was  softened,  for 
though  he  deprecated  their  immorality  more  strongly  than  ever,  and 
asserted  his  intention  of  enforcing  his  mandate,  he  condescended  to 
argue  at  much  length  on  the  propriety  of  chastity,  and  even  de¬ 
scended  to  entreaty,  beseeching  them  to  preserve  the  purity  so  essen¬ 
tial  to  the  character  of  the  church,  the  absence  of  which  had  drawn 
upon  the  clergy  an  odium  which  could  scarce  be  described  in  words.1 
How  slender  was  his  success  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the 
next  year  he  felt  it  necessary  to  hold  another  synod,  in  which  he 
renewed  and  confirmed  the  proceedings  of  the  former  one,  and  en¬ 
deavored  to  reduce  the  monks  and  nuns  of  his  diocese  into  some 
kind  of  subjection  to  the  rules  of  discipline.2 

The  Archbishop  of  Cologne  was  as  energetic  as  his  brother  of 
Treves,  with  about  equal  success.  •  On  September  1st  he  issued  the 
Augsburg  Formula  of  Reformation,  with  a  call  for  a  synod  to  be 
held  on  October  2d.  At  the  same  time  he  manifested  his  sense  of 
the  primary  importance  of  correcting  clerical  immorality  by  promul¬ 
gating  a  special  mandate  respecting  concubinage.  He  asserted  this 
to  be  the  chief  cause  of  the  contempt  popularly  felt  for  the  church,3 
and  he  ordered  all  ecclesiastics  to  send  their  women  beyond  the  bounds 
of  their  parishes  within  nine  days,  under  the  penalties  provided  in 
the  imperial  decree.  The  synod  was  held  at  the  time  indicated,  and, 
though  it  adopted  no  regular  canons,  it  accepted  the  Augsburg  For¬ 
mula  and  the  mandate  of  the  archbishop,  with  a  trifling  alteration.4 

This  proved  utterly  ineffectual,  for  in  March,  1549,  he  assembled 
a  provincial  council,  in  which  he  deplored  the  license  of  the  times, 
which  rendered  the  strictness  of  the  ancient  canons  unadvisable,  and 
he  announced  that  it  had  been  decided  to  proceed  gradually  with  the 
intended  reforms.  As  to  the  morals  of  the  clergy,  he  stated  that 
everywhere  the  cure  of  souls  was  delegated  to  improper  persons, 
many  of  them  living  in  the  foulness  of  concubinage,  in  perpetual 
drunkenness,  and  in  other  infamous  vices,  encouraged  by  the  negli¬ 
gence  of  bishops  and  the  thirst  of  archdeacons  for  unhallowed  gains. 
The  unions  of  those  who,  infected  by  the  new  heresies,  did  not  hesi¬ 
tate  to  enter  into  matrimony,  w*ere  of  course  pronounced  illicit  and 


1  Synod.  Trevirens.  ann.  1548  cap.  ii. 

2  Synod.  Trevirens.  II.  ann.  1549 
cap.  xi.,  xix. 

3  Mandat,  de  abjic.  Concub.  (Ilartz- 

heim  VI.  353). 


4  Ibid.  p.  358.  A  Diocesan  Synod 
was  also  held  at  Liege,  Nov.  15,  which 
gave  offending  clerks  fifteen  days  to 
part  -with  their  concubines  (Ibid.  VI. 

395). 


EFFORTS  OF  CHARLES  Y. 


527 


impious,  their  offspring  illegitimate,  and  the  parents  anathematized; 
but  for  those  who  remained  in  the  church,  yet  submitted  to  no  re¬ 
straint  upon  their  passions,  a  more  merciful  spirit  was  shown,  for  the 
punishments  ordered  by  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  were  somewhat  light¬ 
ened  in  their  favor.  The  extreme  license  of  the  period  may  be 
understood  from  another  canon  directed  against  the  comedians,  who, 
not  content  with  the  ordinary  theatres,  were  in  the  habit  of  visiting 
the  nunneries,  where  their  profane  plays  and  amatory  acting  excited 
to  unholy  desires  the  virgins  dedicated  to  God.1  No  one  acquainted 
with  the  coarseness  of  the  drama  of  that  rude  age  can  doubt  the  pro¬ 
priety  of  the  archbishop’s  reproof.  Supplementary  synods  were  also 
held  in  October,  1549,  and  February,  1550,  to  perfect  the  details  of 
a  very  thorough  inquisitorial  visitation  of  the  whole  province. 

This  visitation,  so  pompously  heralded,  did  not  take  place.  At  a 
synod  held  in  October,  1550,  the  archbishop  made  sundry  lame 
excuses  for  its  postponement.  Another  synod  was  assembled  in 
February,  1551,  at  which  we  hear  nothing  more  of  it;  but  the  pre¬ 
lates  of  the  diocese  were  requested  to  collect  such  ancient  and  for¬ 
gotten  canons  as  they  could  find,  which  might  be  deemed  advan¬ 
tageous  in  the  future;2  and  with  this  the  work  of  reformation  in  the 
province  of  Cologne  appears  to  end. 

In  1549,  Ernest,  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  assembled  the  synod  of 
his  extensive  province,  but  when  his  clergy  understood  that  it  wTas 
intended  to  confirm  the  reformatory  edict  of  the  emperor,  they  had 
the  audacity  to  present  a  petition  praying  that  the  clause  ordering 
the  removal  of  their  concubines  should  not  be  enforced.  They  de¬ 
clared  that  the  attempt  to  do  so  would  be  attended  with  serious  diffi¬ 
culty,  and  that  it  would  lead  to  greater  evils  than  it  sought  to  remove, 
and  they  asked  that  the  consideration  of  the  matter  should  be  referred 
to  the  general  council,  whose  reassembling  was  no  longer  dreaded. 
The  synod,  with  a  proper  sense  of  its  dignity,  refused  to  receive  the 
shameless  petition,  and  listened  rather  to  those  of  its  members  who 
complained  of  the  practice  of  the  officials  in  receiving  bribes  for  per¬ 
mitting  illicit  indulgences,  and  the  representations  of  Duke  William, 
of  Bavaria,  who  asserted  that  the  Lutheran  heresy  had  been  caused 
by  the  scandalous  corruption  of  the  church.  A  canon  was  accord- 


1  Concil.  Coloniens.  ann.  1549  cap.  conjugat. — Cap.  de  Concub.  Monach. 
Quibus  possint. — Cap.  de  Monach.  — Cap.  Comcedias. 

2  Hartzheim  VI.  767,  781. 


528 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


ingly  adopted  which  renewed  the  regulations  of  Bale  and  ordered 
the  speedy  removal  of  all  recognized  and  notorious  concubines.1 

In  October  and  November,  1548,  and  April,  1549,  the  Bishops 
of  Paderborn,  Wurzburg,  and  Strassburg  held  synods  which  adopted 
the  reformatory  measures  decreed  at  Augsburg.2  These  were  pre¬ 
paratory  to  the  metropolitan  synod  of  Mainz,  assembled  in  May, 
1549,  which  commanded  that  no  one  should  be  thereafter  admitted 
to  orders  without  a  preliminary  examination  by  his  bishop  on  the 
subject  of  doctrine,  and  testimonials  from  the  people  as  to  purity  of 
character.  After  thus  wisely  providing  for  the  future,  attention  was 
directed  to  the  present.  It  was  declared  intolerable  that,  in  spite  of 
the  reiterated  prohibitions  of  the  fathers  and  councils,  concubines 
should  be  universally  kept ;  the  Basilian  canon  was  therefore  revived, 
and  its  enforcement  strictly  enjoined  on  the  ordinaries,  who  were 
forbidden  in  any  manner  to  connive  at  these  disorders  for  the  sake 
of  profit.3 

The  pressure  was  continued,  for  when  Cambrai,  which  owed  tem¬ 
poral  obedience  to  the  emperor,  while  ecclesiastically  it  formed  part 
of  the  province  of  Bheims,  neglected  to  adopt  the  Formula  of  Augs¬ 
burg  for  two  years,  it  was  not  allowed  to  escape.  In  October,  1550, 
a  synod  was  finally  assembled  there  under  stringent  orders  from 
Charles,  and  the  Formula  was  published,  together  with  an  elaborate 
series  of  canons,  which  would  have  been  well  adapted  to  correct 
abuses  that  were  not  incorrigible.4 

Charles  had  thus  exerted  all  the  resources  of  his  imperial  suprem¬ 
acy,  and,  whether  willingly  or  not,  the  powerful  prelates  who  ruled 
the  German  church  had  united  in  carrying  out  his  views.  The  tem¬ 
poral  and  spiritual  authorities  had  thus  been  concentrated  upon  the 
vices  of  the  church,  and  if  its  reformation  had  been  possible,  in  the 
existing  condition  of  its  organization,  some  improvement  must  have 
resulted  from  these  combined  and  persistent  efforts.  How  nugatory 


1  Dalham,  Concil.  Salisburg.  pp.  328, 
337  (Concil.  Salisburg.  XLIV.  can. 
vii.). 

2  Gropp,  Collect.  Script.  Wirceburg. 

I.  311. — Hartzheim  VI.  359,  417.  in 

the  epistle  convoking  his  council, 
Bishop  Melchior  of  Wurzburg  alluded 
passionately  to  the  evils  everywhere  ex¬ 
isting:  “  Videtis  percussum  pastorem  ; 
videtis  oves  dispersas ;  videtis  impu- 


dentem  peccandi  licentiam ;  videtis 
adversus  pietatem  audaciam  turn  lo- 
quendi  turn  disputandi  impiissimam,  et 
indies  scelerata  gliscere  schismata" 
(Ibid.  X.  753). 

8  Concil.  Mogunt.  ann.  1549  c.  82, 
102. 

4  Synod.  Canierac.  ann.  1550  (Hartz¬ 
heim  VI.  654). 


DEMAND  FOR  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


529 


were  the  results  may  be  guessed  from  a  memorial  presented  in  1558, 
by  the  University  of  Louvain,  to  Philip  II.,  exhorting  him  to  grant 
no  toleration  to  the  heretics,  but,  at  the  same  time,  urging  upon  him 
the  absolute  necessity  of  some  comprehensive  system  of  reform  to 
purify  the  church,  all  the  orders  of  which  were  given  over  utterly  to 
the  twin  vices  of  avarice  and  licentiousness.1  The  same  testimony 
is  borne  by  a  consultation  drawn  up  in  1562  by  order  of  the  Em¬ 
peror  Ferdinand.  After  alluding  to  the  efforts  at  reform  made  by 
Paul  III.  and  Charles  V.,  it  declares  that  their  only  result  has  been 
to  make  the  condition  of  clerical  morality  worse  than  before,  exciting 
the  hatred  of  the  people  for  their  priests  to  an  incredible  pitch,  and 
doing  more  to  inflame  the  ardor  of  heresy  than  all  the  teaching  of 
Christian  truth  can  do  to  restrain  it.2 

As  the  failure  of  all  efforts  to  improve  clerical  morality  under  the 
existing  rules  of  discipline  was  thus  found  to  be  complete,  there  arose 
in  the  minds  of  thinking  men  a  conviction,  such  as  Erasmus  had 
already  declared,  that,  since  all  other  measures  had  proved  fruitless, 
the  only  mode  of  securing  a  virtuous  clergy  was  to  remove  the  pro¬ 
hibition  of  marriage.  At  the  Polish  Diet  of  1552  petitions  praying 
for  sacerdotal  matrimony  were  presented,  and,  though  they  failed  in 
their  object,  the  Diet  of  1556  authorized  King  Sigismund  Augustus 
to  address  Paul  IV.  with  a  request,  in  the  name  of  the  nation,  to 
grant  it  as  well  as  communion  in  both  elements.3 

The  dissension  thus  existing  within  the  church  is  exhibited  in  a 
volume  published  in  1558  by  Stanislas  Hosius,  Bishop  of  Erm eland, 
earnestly  arguing  against  communion  in  both  elements,  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  and  the  use  of  the  vulgar  tongue  in  worship.  As  regards 
celibacy,  he  assumes  that  it  had  been  maintained  unbrokenly  for 
fifteen  hundred  years,  and  was  not  now  to  be  abandoned  to  gratify 
a  few  disorderly  monks.  The  example  of  the  Greek  church  he  meets 
by  pointing  out  that  the  Greeks  were  suffered  to  be  persecuted  by 
the  Turks ;  the  argument  that  marriage  would  purify  the  church  he 
silences  with  the  observation  that  many  married  men  are  adulterers ; 


1  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  IY.  611. 

2  Consult.  Imp.  Ferdinand.  (Le  Plat, 
Y.  235).  It  would  be  impossible  to 
conceive  a  darker  picture  of  clerical 
life  than  is  given  in  this  document. 

“  Ejici  autem  nunc  clerum,  conculcari 
pedibus,  pro  nibilo  baberi  et  tanquam 


publicum  offendiculum  devoveri  diris 
aut  paulo  plus,  tarn  verum  est  quam 
minime  falsum,  cleri  mores  insulsos 
esse,  vanos  esse,  turpes  esse,  seque 
ecclesiae  perniciosos  ac  l)eo  execrabiles  ” 
—Ibid.  p.  237. 

3  Krasinski,  Reformation  in  Poland, 
I.  190,  285. 


34 


530 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


and  he  holds  it  to  be  a  doubting  of  God  to  suppose  that  the  gift  of 
continence  would  be  denied  to  those  who  properly  seek  it.1  In  spite 
of  the  logic  of  polemics  such  as  Hosius,  the  opinions  of  the  inno¬ 
vators  continued  to  gain  ground,  until  at  length  they  won  even  the 
highest  dignitaries  of  the  empire,  and  in  1560  the  Emperor  Ferdi¬ 
nand  himself  undertook  their  advocacy  with  the  pope,  after  having 
for  some  years  countenanced  the  practice  within  his  own  territories. 

Almost  immediately  on  the  consecration  of  Pius  IV.,  in  addressing 
to  him  an  argument  for  the  reassembling  of  the  council  of  Trent,  or 
the  convocation  of  a  new  council,  Ferdinand  seized  the  opportunity 
to  ask  especially  for  the  communication  of  the  cup  to  the  laity,  and 
permission  for  the  clergy  to  marry.  The  latter  of  these  points  he 
considered  to  be  the  only  remedy  for  the  fearful  immorality  of  the 
church,  for,  though  all  flesh  was  corrupt,  the  corruption  of  the  priest¬ 
hood  surpassed  that  of  all  other  men.2  That  he  had  not  waited  for 
the  papal  assent  to  favor  these  innovations  within  his  own  dominions 
is  shown  by  his  statement  that  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg  had 
recently,  in  a  synod,  earnestly  called  upon  him  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
progress  which  they  were  making,  but,  he  added,  his  long  experience 
in  such  matters  had  shown  him  what  was  possible,  and  what  impos¬ 
sible,  and  he  had  accordingly  set  forth  the  difficulties  of  the  task  in 
a  paper  addressed  to  the  archbishop,  a  copy  of  which  he  inclosed  to 
the  pope.3 

The  nuncio  Commendone,  in  transmitting  this  document  to  Rome, 
accompanied  it  with  a  letter  from  the  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Augsburg, 
recommending  the  postponement  of  the  question  until  the  reassem- 


1  Hosii  Dialogus  de  ea,  num  Calicem 
Laicis  et  Uxores  Sacerdotibus  permitti 
etc.  Dilingae,  1558. 

2  Pallavicini,  Storia  del  Concil.  di 
Trento,  Lib.  xiv.  c.  13. 

Twelve  years  before,  his  uncle,  the 
Bishop  of  Liege,  in  promulgating  the 
Augsburg  formula  of  reformation,  had 
made  a  similar  assertion — “  Preterquam 
quod  hoc  infoelici  saeculo,  quo  omnis 
caro  corrupit  viam  suam,  pnesertimque 
ordo  cleri corum  et  ecclesiasticorum, 
nimium  degenerant,  plus  quam  un- 
quam  est  necessaria” — Concil.  Leo- 
diens.  ann.  1548  (Hartzheim  VI.  392). 
The  increased  emphasis  of  Ferdinand 
is  a  measure  of  the  success  which  had 
attended  the  reformatory  movements  of 
Charles  V.  during  the  interval. 

In  such  a  condition  of  ecclesiastical 


morality  it  is  no  wonder  that  even  in 
orthodox  Vienna  the  most  popular 
theme  on  which  preachers  could  ex¬ 
patiate  was  the  corruption  of  the 
church. — See  the  Emperor  Ferdinand’s 
secret  instructions  to  his  envoy  in  Rome, 
March  6th,  1560,  in  Le  Plat,  Monu¬ 
ment.  Concil.  Trident.  IV.  622. 

3  Pallavicini,  loc.  cit.  That  the 
Catholic  church  of  Germany  had  be¬ 
come  widely  infected  with  this  Lu¬ 
theran  heresy  is  also  shown  by  the 
fact  that  in  1548  the  Archbishop  of 
Cologne  had  found  it  necessary  toj  pro¬ 
hibit  throughout  his  province  all  mar¬ 
riages  of  priests,  monks,  and  nuns,  and 
had  pronounced  illegitimate  the  off¬ 
spring  of  such  unions.  —  Hartzheim 
VI.  357. 


DEMAND  FOR  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


581 


bling  of  tbe  council  of  Trent,  and,  as  Pius  answered  it  in  this  sense, 
no  further  action  was  taken,  though  Ferdinand  made  haste  to  repeat 
his  demand,  in  view  of  the  impatience  of  both  clergy  and  people,  who 
could  ill  brook  the  delays  inseparable  from  the  discussion  of  the  sub¬ 
ject  in  so  unwieldy  a  body.1  When  Commendone,  moreover,  passed 
through  Cleves  on  his  way  to  the  council,  then  about  to  be  reopened, 
the  Duke  of  Cleves  earnestly  besought  him  to  lend  his  influence  to 
the  accomplishment  of  the  measure,  urging  as  a  reason  that  in  the 
whole  of  his  dominions — and  he  was  sovereign  of  three  populous 
duchies — there  could  not  be  found  five  priests  who  did  not  keep  con¬ 
cubines.  In  order  to  secure  his  favor  for  the  approaching  council, 
Commendone  did  not  scruple  to  hold  out  expectations  that  the  con¬ 
cessions  would  be  granted.2 

During  the  progress  of  the  Reformation,  when  the  fate  of  the 
Catholic  church  of  Germany  had  sometimes  seemed  to  hang  in  the 
balance,  no  princes  had  earned  a  larger  title  to  the  gratitude  of  Rome 
than  the  powerful  Dukes  of  Bavaria,  who  were  the  leaders  of  the 
reaction.  Yet  now  the  influence  of  that  important  region  was  thrown 
in  favor  of  the  abrogation  of  celibacy,  and  Duke  Albert  was  the  first 
wTho  boldly  brought  the  matter  before  the  council  by  a  demand  for 
ecclesiastical  marriage,  presented  on  the  27th  of  June,  1562.  To 
this  the  evasive  answer  was  returned  that  the  council  would  take 
such  action  as  would  be  found  to  redound  to  the  glory  of  God  and 
to  the  benefit  of  the  church.3  During  the  same  year  the  Emperor 
Ferdinand  also  repeatedly  urged  its  consideration.  A  plan  for  the 
reform  of  the  church  presented  by  his  delegates  not  only  called 
attention  to  the  necessity  of  purifying  the  morals  of  the  regular  and 
secular  clergy,  but  demanded  that,  to  some  nations  at  least,  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  sacerdotal  marriage  should  be  conceded.4  Another  elaborate 
paper  argued  the  question  with  much  temperate  force,  and  declared 
that  many  priests  had  already  married  for  the  purpose  of  escaping 
the  corruptions  of  celibacy,  while  studiously  preserving  themselves 
from  the  errors  of  Lutheranism.  Out  of  a  hundred  parish  priests 
scarcely  one  could  be  found  who  was  not  either  openly  or  secretly 


1  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  IV.  644. 

2  Pallavicini,  Lib.  xv.  c.  5. — The 
duke,  though  no  bigot,  was  a  good 
Catholic. 

3  Pallavicini,  Lib.  xvn.  c.  4.  At 


the  request  of  Duke  Albert,  the  ques¬ 
tion  was  also  mooted  at  the  provincial 
synod  of  Salzburg,  held  in  1562  for 
the  purpose  of  sending  delegates  to 
Trent. — Ilartzheim  VII.  230. 

4  Articuli  de  Reform.  Eccles.  No. 
14,  15,  18. — Goldast.  II.  376. 


532 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


married,  and  it  was  necessary  to  tolerate  them  to  prevent  the  utter 
destruction  of  the  church.1 

A  third  document  is  extant,  without  date,  which  was  laid  before 
the  cardinals  of  the  papal  court  by  the  emperor,  in  which  the  ques¬ 
tion  was  argued  at  considerable  length  and  with  much  vehemence. 
After  asserting  that  from  the  records  of  the  primitive  church  celibacy 
was  not  then  recognized  as  imperative,  it  proceeded  to  declare  that 
if  marriage  ever  were  permissible,  the  present  carnal  and  licentious 
age  rendered  it  a  necessity,  for  not  one  Catholic  priest  out  of  fifty 
could  be  found  who  lived  chastely.  All  were  asserted  to  be  notori¬ 
ously  dissolute,  scandalizing  the  people  and  inflicting  great  damage 
on  the  church.  The  request  was  made  not  so  much  to  satisfy  the 
priests  who  desired  marriage  as  to  meet  the  wishes  of  the  laity,  for 
many  patrons  of  livings  refused  presentation  to  all  but  married  men. 
However  preferable  a  single  life  might  be  for  the  clergy,  it  therefore 
was  thought  better  to  give  it  up  than  to  leave  open  the  door  to  the 
scandalous  impurities  traceable  to  celibacy.  Another  weighty  reason 
was  alleged  in  the  great  scarcity  of  priests,  caused  alone  by  the  pro¬ 
hibition  of  marriage,  in  proof  of  which  it  was  urged  that  the  Catholic 
schools  of  divinity  w*ere  all  but  empty  and  the  episcopal  function  of 
ordination  nearly  disused,  while  the  Lutheran  colleges  were  crowded 
by  those  who  subsequently  obtained  admission  into  the  true  church, 
where  they  worked  incredible  mischief.  The  argument  that  the 
temporal  possessions  of  the  church  would  be  imperilled  by  sacerdotal 
matrimony  was  met  by  indignantly  denouncing  the  worldly  wisdom 
which  would  protect  such  perishable  interests  at  the  cost  of  innumer¬ 
able  souls  sacrificed  by  the  existing  condition  of  affairs.  For  these 
and  other  reasons  it  asked  that  marriage  should  in  future  be  allowed 
to  all  the  priesthood,  whether  already  in  orders  or  to  be  subsequently 
admitted :  that  married  men  of  good  character  and  education  should 
be  ordained  to  supply  the  want  of  pastors :  that  those  who  had  con¬ 
tracted  matrimony,  in  contravention  of  the  canons,  should  no  longer 
be  ejected,  seeing  that  it  was  most  absurd  to  turn  out  men  because 
they  were  married,  while  retaining  notorious  concubinarians,  and 
that  if,  with  equal  justice,  both  classes  should  be  dismissed,  the  people 
would  be  left  almost,  if  not  entirely,  destitute  of  spiritual  guides. 
The  paper  concluded  by  asserting  that  if  the  prayer  be  granted  the 
clergy  could  be  retained  in  the  church  and  in  the  faith,  to  the  great 


1  Consultat.  Imp.  Ferdinandi  (Le  Plat,  V.  249,  252). 


DEMAND  FOR  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


533 


benefit  of  their  flocks,  and  that  the  scandal  of  promiscuous  licenti¬ 
ousness,  which  had  involved  the  church  in  so  much  disgrace,  would 
be  removed.1 

This  vivid  sketch  of  the  condition  of  the  church,  with  the  evils 
which  were  everywhere  felt,  and  the  remedies  which  suggested  them¬ 
selves  to  clear-sighted  and  impartial  men,  was  as  ineffectual  as  other 
similar  efforts  had  been,  for  to  all  such  arguments  the  council  of  Trent 
was  deaf.  France,  too,  was  more  than  willing  to  see  celibacy  abol¬ 
ished.  M.  de  Lanssac,  the  French  ambassador,  was  ordered  to  place 
himself  in  close  relations  with  the  representatives  of  the  emperor, 
and  to  unite  with  them  in  seeking  the  relaxation  of  all  regulations 
which  tended  to  prevent  the  reunion  of  the  Protestants,  while  the 
Gallican  bishops  were  commanded  to  show  themselves  reasonable  and 
yielding  in  such  matters ;  and  when  Lanssac  reported  the  demands 
of  the  emperor,  comprehending  clerical  marriage  among  other  changes, 
Charles  IX.  assented  to  them  in  terms  of  warm  commendation.2  The 
Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  moreover,  was  instructed  to  urge  some  measures 
efficient  to  reform  the  licentious  lives  of  the  ecclesiastics  which  spread 
corruption  and  debauchery  among  the  people,  wThile  permission  for 
priestly  marriage  was  recommended  as  one  of  the  means  essential  to 
recall  the  heretics  to  the  bosom  of  the  true  church.3  As  a  compro¬ 
mise,  however,  the  French  prelates  contented  themselves  with  sug¬ 
gesting  that  none  but  elderly  men  should  be  eligible  to  the  priesthood, 
and  that  the  testimony  of  the  people  in  favor  of  their  moral  character 
should  be  a  prerequisite  to  ordination,  in  hopes  that  by  such  means 
the  necessary  purification  of  the  clergy  at  least  could  be  effected, 
while  the  sharpest  measures  should  be  adopted  to  punish  their  licen¬ 
tiousness.4 

All  this  was  useless,  and,  in  fact,  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  how  any 
one  could  expect  a  reform  of  this  nature  from  a  body  composed  of 
prelates  all  whom  wrere  obliged  by  Pius  IV.,  in  a  decree  of  Sep¬ 
tember  4th,  1560,  to  solemnly  swear  to  a  profession  of  faith  contain¬ 
ing  a  specific  declaration  that  the  vows  of  chastity  assumed  on  enter¬ 
ing  into  holy  orders  or  monastic  life  were  to  be  strictly  observed  and 
enforced.5  The  question  thus  was  prejudged,  and  the  council  was 


1  Considerat.  Caesar.  Majest.  sup. 
Matrim.  Sacerd.  Nos.  6,  7,  8,  10,  11, 
12,  13,  15,  16,  17  (Goldast.  II.  382-3 
— Le  Plat,  YI.  315). 

2  Le  Plat,  Y.  154,  208,  211. 

3  Le  Plat,  Y.  562-3. 


4  Capi  dati  da’  Francesi  cap.  1  — 
(Baluz.  et  Mansi  IY.  374)  Comp.  Zac- 
caria  pp.  133-4. 

5  Yotum  castitatis  sacris  ordinibus 
conjunctum,  atque  vota  quae  in  probatis 
religionibus  emittuntur,  et  alia  quae- 


534 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


more  likely  to  listen  to  Bartholomew  a  Martyribus,  the  Archbishop 
of  Bracara,  who  laid  before  them  a  paper  containing  the  points  which, 
in  his  opinion,  required  reformation,  among  which  were  the  revival 
of  the  canons  respecting  concubinary  bishops  and  priests,  the  prohi¬ 
bition  of  sons  succeeding  to  their  father’s  benefices,  and  the  excom¬ 
munication  of  confessors  who  debauched  their  fair  penitents1 — though 
when  the  sturdy  archbishop  in  a  stormy  debate  declared  that  “illus- 
trissimi  cardinales  egent  illustrissima  reformatione,”  he  doubtless  was 
held  to  be  a  most  uncourtly  and  impracticable  reformer. 

Despite  all  the  urgency  from  without,  it  was  not  until  the  8th  of 
February,  1563,  after  the  council  had  been  in  session  for  more  than 
a  year,  that  the  theologians  at  last  arranged  for  disputation  the  articles 
on  matrimony,  and  laid  them  before  the  council  for  discussion.  They 
were  divided  into  five  classes,  of  which  the  fourth  was  devoted  to  the 
bearing  of  the  subject  on  the  clergy,  consisting  of  two  propositions 
artfully  drawn  up  to  justify  rejection,  while  preserving  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  presenting  the  subject  for  deliberation  —  That  matrimony 
was  preferable  to  celibacy,  and  that  God  bestowed  grace  on  the  mar¬ 
ried  rather  than  on  the  single. — That  the  priests  of  the  Western 
Church  could  lawfully  contract  marriage,  notwithstanding  the  canons ; 
that  to  deny  this  was  to  condemn  matrimony,  and  that  all  were  at 
liberty  to  marry  who  did  not  feel  themselves  graced  with  the  gift  of 
chastity.2 

The  disputation  on  the  various  questions  connected  with  matri¬ 
mony  commenced  the  next  day,  and  was  continued  at  intervals  for 
six  months.  By  August  7th  all  the  canons  on  the  subject  were 
agreed  to,  except  the  one  on  clandestine  marriages,  which  gave  the 
fathers  much  more  trouble  than  the  more  important  decision  respect¬ 
ing  the  retention  of  celibacy.3  This  latter,  indeed,  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  In  the  minute  account,  transmitted  from  day  to  day  by 
Archbishop  Calini  to  Cardinal  Cornaro,  in  which  all  the  details  of 
internal  discussion  and  external  intrigue  attainable  by  a  quick-witted 
member  of  the  council  were  reported,  there  is  no  allusion  to  the  sub¬ 
ject.  No  debates  or  diversity  of  opinion  are  mentioned,  no  intirna- 


cunque  rite  suscepta,  fideliter  sunt 
observanda. — Le  Plat,  IV.  649. 

1  Ibid.  iv.  756,  760,  761,  765.— The 
182  articles  which,  according  to  Arch¬ 
bishop  Bartholomew,  required  reform  in 
the  internal  discipline  of  the  church 
form  as  damaging  a  commentary  upon 


its  condition  as  any  of  the  attacks  of 
the  Protestants. 

2  Art.  v.  —  Lettere  del  Arcivesc. 
Calini  (Baluz.  et  Mansi  IV.  295). — Le 
Plat,  V.  674. 

3  Lettere  di  Calini  (Ibid.  326). 


CELIBACY  A  FOREGONE  CONCLUSION. 


535 


tion  that  the  matter  was  regarded  as  open  to  a  doubt,  and  even  the 
appeals  made  by  the  emperor  and  other  potentates  are  passed  over 
in  silence,  for  the  very  sufficient  reason  that  the  papal  legates,  who 
controlled  all  the  business  of  the  council,  refused  to  allow  them  to 
be  read.1  In  their  reply  to  the  emperor’s  remonstrances,  indeed, 
they  declared  that  to  have  such  a  subject  publicly  broached  in  the 
council  would  create  a  fearful  scandal  throughout  Christendom,  and 
Pius  IV.  approved  of  their  answer  as  the  best  that  could  be  given.2 
It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  in  the  correspondence  of  the  nuncio 
Visconti  the  only  allusion  to  the  matter  is  a  simple  reference,  under 
date  of  March  22,  1563,  to  the  demand  previously  made  by  the 
Duke  of  Bavaria.3 

In  fact,  when,  on  March  4th,  the  5th  and  6th  articles  were  reached, 
they  were  both  unanimously  pronounced  heretical  without  any  pro¬ 
longed  debate.  Doctor  Juan  de  Ludegna  pronounced  a  “  disputa¬ 
tion”  on  the  subject,  the  tone  of  wffiich  showed  that  the  result  was 
already  decided,  and  that  the  only  disposition  of  the  council  was  to 
vilify  those  who  desired  the  abrogation  of  celibacy.4  A  discussion, 
however,  then  arose  as  to  the  power  of  the  pope  to  dispense  the 
clergy,  both  regular  and  secular,  from  the  obligation  of  celibacy,  and 
on  this  point  there  was  considerable  diversity  of  opinion,  occupying 
numerous  successive  meetings  in  its  settlement.  The  majority  were 
in  favor  of  the  papal  power ;  and  its  exercise  in  the  existing  con¬ 
dition  of  the  church  was  even  recommended  by  those  who  recognized 
the  evils  of  the  system,  but  shrank  from  the  responsibility  of  them¬ 
selves  introducing  the  innovation.  This  was  promptly  rebuked  by 
the  conservatives,  according  to  Fra  Paolo,  with  the  remark  that  a 
prudent  physician  would  not  attempt  to  cure  one  disease  by  bringing 
on  a  greater.5  The  legates,  indeed,  were  blamed  for  allowing  any 
discussion  on  so  dangerous  a  topic,  since,  if  priests  were  permitted  to 
marry,  their  affections  would  be  concentrated  on  family  and  country, 
in  place  of  the  church ;  their  subjection  to  the  Holy  See  would  be 


1  See  the  apologetic  letter  of  the 
nuncio  to  the  emperor,  Jan.  19th,  1562 
(Le  Plat,  op.  cit.  Y.  320).  Ferdinand 
remonstrated  earnestly,  hut  did  not 
venture  to  rebel  against  their  decision 
(Ibid.  351-60). 

2  Ibid.  p.  388. 

3  Lettere  del  Nunzio  Yisconti  (Ba- 
luz.  et  Mansi  III.  453). 

4  Disputat.  Joann,  de  Ludegna  (Har- 


duin.  X.  359).  The  learned  doctor 
presents  his  argument  in  the  form  of  a 
colloquy  between  himself  and  Calvin, 
and  its  spirit  may  be  gathered  from  the 
first  speech  of  Calvin,  in  which  he  is 
made  to  declare  that  he  is  endeavoring 
to  find  arguments  with  which  to  defend 
himself  and  his  apostate  strumpets. 

5  Sarpi,  Lib.  vn.  (Opere,  II.  280, 
Helmstat,  1761). 


536 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


diminished,  the  whole  system  of  the  hierarchy  destroyed,  and  the 
pope  himself  would  eventually  become  a  simple  Bishop  of  Borne.1 
If  such  consequences  as  these  were  anticipated  by  the  able  men  who 
represented  the  papal  interests,  we  may  readily  believe  that  Palla- 
vicini  speaks  the  sense  of  the  managers  of  the  council  when  he 
remarks,  concerning  the  princes  who  exerted  themselves  in  favor  of 
sacerdotal  marriage,  that  they  seemed  to  consider  that  the  council 
had  been  convoked  for  the  purpose  not  of  condemning  but  of  con¬ 
tenting  the  heretics,  whom  they  proposed  to  convert  by  gratifying 
in  place  of  repressing  their  contumacious  desires.2  If  this  be  so,  the 
Protestants  were  amply  justified  in  refusing  to  submit  their  cause  to  a 
body  so  different  in  its  objects  from  that  free  and  unbiased  oecumenic 
council  to  which  they  had  so  often  appealed  from  their  persecutors. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  that  the  policy  of  the  church  was  thus  im¬ 
mutable,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  hesitation  in  holding  out  falla¬ 
cious  hopes  to  the  expectant  populations.  When,  in  the  spring  of 
1563,  the  Bavarians,  wearied  with  endless  promises,  rose  in  revolt 
and  demanded  the  use  of  the  cup  and  priestly  marriage,  their  duke 
was  obliged  to  make  a  promise  to  his  Diet  that  if  the  required  con¬ 
cessions  were  not  granted  in  June,  by  either  the  council  or  the  pope, 
he  would  himself  give  the  desired  permission.  The  threatened  defec¬ 
tion  of  this  Catholic  stronghold  caused  such  alarm  that  the  legates  at 
Trent  forthwith  despatched  Niccolo  Ormanetto  to  the  duke,  to  per¬ 
suade  him  to  withdraw  his  promised  reforms  under  a  pledge  that  the 
council  would  take  such  order  as  would  satisfy  the  demands  of  his 
people.3 

These  promises  were  soon  forgotten,  though  it  was  not  until  the 
11  th  of  November  that  the  canons  on  matrimony  were  finally  adopted 
and  formally  published.  Of  these  there  are  two  relating  to  our  sub¬ 
ject.  The  first  one  pronounced  the  dread  anathema  on  all  who  should 
dare  to  assert  that  clerks  in  holy  orders,  monks,  or  nuns  could  con¬ 
tract  marriage,  or  that  such  a  marriage  was  valid,  since  God  would 
not  deny  the  gift  of  chastity  to  those  who  rightly  sought  it,  nor  would 
He  expose  us  to  temptation  beyond  our  strength.  The  other  simi¬ 
larly  anathematized  all  who  dared  to  assert  that  the  married  state  was 
more  worthy  than  virginity,  or  that  it  was  not  better  to  live  in  celi¬ 
bacy  than  married.4 


1  Sarpi  (loc.  cit. ). 

3  Pallavicini,  Lib.  xvii.  c.  4. 
3  Sarpi,  Lib.  viii.  p.  315. 


4  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxiv.  De 
Sacrament.  Matrimon. 

Can.  ix.  Si  quis  dixerit  clericos  in 
sacris  ordinibus  constitutes,  vel  regu- 


CELIBACY  MAINTAINED. 


537 


Thus  the  church,  in  endeavoring  to  meet  the  novel  exigencies 
caused  by  the  progress  and  enlightenment  of  mankind,  in  place  of 
making  the  concessions  demanded  by  almost  all  beyond  the  narrow 
pale  of  the  papal  court,  devoted  its  energies  to  the  miserable  task  of 
separating  itself  as  widely  as  possible  from  those  who  had  left  it.1 
Its  rulers  seemed  to  imagine  that  their  only  hope  of  safety  lay  in 
intrenching  themselves  behind  the  exaggerations  of  those  particular 
points  of  policy  which  had  afforded  to  their  adversaries  the  fairest 
chances  of  attack.  The  faithful  throughout  Germany  might  suffer 
from  the  absence  of  the  ministers  of  Christ,  or  might  endure  yet 
more  from  the  unrestrained  passions  of  the  wolves  in  sheep’s  clothing 
let  loose  among  their  wives  and  daughters,  but  the  church  militant 
in  this  conjuncture  dreaded  even  more  to  lose  the  aid  of  that  monastic 
army  which,  in  theory  at  least,  had  no  earthly  object  but  the  service 
of  St.  Peter;  it  selfishly  feared  that  the  parish  priest  who  might 
legitimately  see  his  fireside  surrounded  by  a  happy  group  of  wife 
and  children  would  lose  the  devotion  which  a  man  without  ties  should 
entertain  for  the  prosperity  and  glory  of  the  ecclesiastical  establish¬ 
ment  ;  and  perhaps,  more  than  all,  it  saw  with  terror  avaricious 
princes  eager  for  the  secularization  of  that  immense  property  to 
which  it  owed  so  large  a  portion  of  the  splendor  which  dazzled  man¬ 
kind,  of  the  influence  which  rendered  it  powerful,  and  of  the  luxury 
which  made  its  high  places  attractive  to  the  ambitious  and  able  men 
who  controlled  its  destiny.  To  put  an  end,  therefore,  at  once  and 
forever,  to  the  mutterings  of  dissatisfaction  among  those  who  com¬ 
pared  the  calm  and  virtuous  life  of  the  Protestant  pastors  with  the 
reckless  self-indulgence  of  the  ministers  of  the  old  religion,  it  was 


lares  castitatem  solemniter  professos, 
posse  matrimonium  contrahere,  con- 
tractumque  validum  esse,  non  obstante 
lege  ecclesiastica  vel  voto ;  et  oppositum 
nihil  aliud  esse  quam  damnare  matri- 
monium ;  posseque  omnes  contrahere 
matrimonium,  qui  non  sentiunt  se 
castitatis,  etiamsi  earn  voverint,  habere 
donum;  anathema  sit;  quum  Deus  id 
recte  petentihus  non  deneget,  nec 
patiatur  nos  supra  id  quod  possumus 
tentari. 

Can.  x.  Si  quis  dixerit  statum  con- 
jugalem  anteponendum  esse  statui 
virginitatis  vel  coelibatus,  et  non  esse 
melius  ac  beatius  manere  in  virginitate 
aut  coelibatu,  quam  jungi  matrimonio, 
anathema  sit. 


1  The  feelings  which  the  Council  ex¬ 
cited  among  the  Protestants  are  ex¬ 
pressed  with  more  vigor  than  elegance 
by  Alexander  Nowell,  at  that  time 
Dean  of  St.  Paul’s — “  No  Sir,  your 
Prelats  sat  not  there  about  conning  of 
Articles  of  Eeligion,  or  to  Dispute  with 
Hereticks  to  vanquish  them.  A  few 
louzy  Friars,  whom  no  Man  would  fear 
but  in  his  Pottage  or  Egg-py,  did  serve 
that  Turn  well  enough.  And  your 
great  Prelates  devised  the  while  by 
that  long  Consultation,  how  by  Sword 
and  Fire  they  might  most  cruelly  murder 
all  true  Christians,  whom  they  call 
Hereticks ;  and  now  do  labour  to  put 
in  Execution  such  their  bloody  De¬ 
vices.” — Strype’s  Annals,  I.  377. 


538 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


resolved  to  place  the  canon  of  celibacy  in  a  position  where  none  of 
the  orthodox  should  dare  to  attack  it,  and  to  accomplish  this  the 
simple  rule  of  discipline  was  elevated  to  the  dignity  of  a  point  of 
belief.  As  the  church  had  already  been  forced,  in  defending  the 
rule  from  the  assaults  of  the  reformers,  to  attribute  to  it  apostolic 
origin,  we  may  not  perhaps  be  surprised  that  it  was  made  a  point 
of  doctrine,  but  we  cannot  easily  appreciate  the  reasons  that  would 
justify  the  anathema  launched  against  all  who  regarded  the  marriage 
of  those  in  holy  orders  as  binding.  The  dissolution  of  such  mar¬ 
riages,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  suggested  until  the  middle  of  the 
twelfth  century,  and  the  decision  of  the  council  thus  condemned  as 
heretics  the  whole  body  of  the  church  during  three-quarters  of  its 
previous  existence. 

Although  the  doctrinal  canon  threw  the  responsibility  of  priestly 
unchastity  upon  God,  yet  as  the  council  had  so  peremptorily  refused 
to  adopt  the  remedy  urged  by  the  princes  of  the  empire,  it  did  not 
hesitate  to  employ  human  means  to  remove,  if  possible,  the  scandals 
which  God  had  permitted  to  afflict  the  church.  The  decree  of  refor¬ 
mation,  published  in  December,  1563,  contained  provisions  intended 
to  curb  the  vice  which  the  Tridentine  fathers,  with  all  their  reliance 
on  Divine  power,  well  knew  to  be  ineradicable.  These  provisions, 
however,  were  little  more  than  a  repetition  of  what  wre  have  seen 
enacted  in  every  century  since  Siricius.  Any  ecclesiastic  guilty  of 
keeping  a  concubine,  or  woman  liable  to  suspicion,  was  admonished ; 
disregarding  this  first  warning,  he  was  deprived  of  one-third  of  his 
revenue ;  if  still  contumacious,  suspension  from  functions  and  bene¬ 
fice  followed  ;  and  a  persistence  in  guilt  wTas  then  visited  with  irrevoc¬ 
able  deprivation.  No  appeal  from  a  sentence  could  gain  exemption ; 
these  cases  were  removed  from  the  jurisdiction  of  inferior  officials  and 
confided  to  the  bishops,  who  were  enjoined  to  be  prompt  and  severe 
in  their  decisions ;  while  guilty  bishops  were  liable  to  suspension  by 
their  provincial  synods,  and,  if  irreclaimable,  wTere  sent  to  Rome  for 
punishment.  The  illegitimate  children  of  priests  were  pronounced 
incapable  of  preferment.  Those  already  in  orders,  if  employed  in 
their  fathers’  parishes,  were  required,  under  pain  of  deprivation,  to 
exchange  their  positions  within  three  months  for  preferment  else- 
wrhere,  and  any  provision  made  by  a  clerical  parent  for  the  benefit  of 
his  children  was  pronounced  to  be  a  fraud.1 


1  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxv.  Decret.  de  Reformat,  cap.  14,  15. 


RENEWED  EFFORTS  OF  GERMANY. 


539 


Such  were  the  regulations  which  this  great  general  council  of  the 
Catholic  church  considered  sufficient  to  relieve  the  establishment  of 
the  curse  which  had  hung  around  it  for  a  thousand  years.  There  is 
nothing  in  them  that  had  not  been  tried  a  hundred  times  before,  with 
what  success  the  foregoing  pages  may  attest.  In  some  respects, 
indeed,  they  were  not  as  prompt  and  efficacious  as  the  decrees  which 
Charles  V.  and  his  bishops  had  promulgated  a  few  years  previous, 
and  which  had  proved  so  lamentably  inefficient.  There  were  not 
wanting  enlightened  members  of  the  council  who  bitterly  felt  the 
inefficiency  of  what  they  were  doing,  but  the  undignified  haste  of  the 
closing  sessions,  and  the  all-powerful  opposition  of  Rome,  rendered 
them  unable  to  accomplish  more.  As  the  Bishop  of  Astorga  said  in 
a  letter  to  Granvelle — “  They  are  not  as  we  would  have  wished,  to 
correct  the  abuses  and  scandals  of  the  church,  which  cause  so  many 
to  fall  into  error,  but  we  have  to  do  what  we  are  permitted  to  do,  not 
what  we  would  wish  to  do.  ” 1  Heretics,  indeed,  who  asserted  that  there 
was  in  reality  no  intention  of  suppressing  concubinage,  could  point 
in  justification  to  the  curious  fact  that,  while  previous  councils  had 
provided  heavy  penalties  against  the  concubines  of  priests,  that  of 
Trent  passed  them  over  as  though  they  were  guiltless. 

Strange  as  it  may  seem,  the  anathema  so  decidedly  enunciated  by 
the  council  did  not  deter  Albert  of  Bavaria  and  the  Emperor  Ferdi¬ 
nand  from  continuing  their  efforts  to  procure  for  their  subjects  the 
benefit  of  a  relaxation  of  the  canon.  The  decision  of  a  majority  of 
the  doctors  of  the  council  favoring  the  papal  power  of  dispensation 
suggested  the  mode  of  obtaining  it.  Although  the  form  of  the  canons 
had  been  adopted  on  the  T th  of  August,  and  the  previous  proceedings 
left  no  doubt  as  to  their  authoritative  promulgation  in  full  session? 
yet,  on  the  26th  of  August,  the  nuncio  Visconti  writes  that  he  had 
heard  from  his  colleague  Delfino,  then  in  Vienna,  that  the  three 
ecclesiastical  electors  (Mainz,  Treves,  and  Cologne),  the  Archbishop 
of  Salzburg  and  the  Duke  of  Bavaria  had  held  a  conference,  in  which 
it  was  resolved  to  unite  with  the  emperor  in  an  appeal  for  Bulls  per¬ 
mitting  the  marriage  of  the  clergy  and  the  use  of  the  cup  by  the 
laity.2  Early  in  September  the  emperor  wrote  to  his  ambassadors, 


1  Ma  noi  facciamo  quello  che  ci  si 
permette  di  fare,  non  quello  che  vor- 
remmo. — Examinatore,  Firenze,  18G8, 
p.  15. 


2  Lett.  No.  lxix.  (Ed.  Amsterd. 
II.  299).  This  and  the  concluding 
letters  are  not  in  Mansi’s  edition. 


540 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


stating  that  he  had  called  together  at  Vienna  the  deputies  of  the 
electors  and  princes  of  the  empire,  where,  after  mature  deliberation, 
it  had  been  determined  to  ask  the  cup  and  clerical  marriage  of  the 
pope  and  not  of  the  council ;  that  a  protocol  had  already  been  drawn 
up,  which  accompanied  the  despatch,  hut  as  it  was  a  matter  not  yet 
fully  settled,  he  desired  it  to  be  communicated  to  no  one  but  the 
Count  de  Luna,  the  ambassador  of  Philip  II.1 

It  was  not,  however,  until  February,  1564,  after  the  conclusion  of 
the  council,  which  brought  its  weary  labors  to  an  end  on  the  4th  of 
December,  1563,  that  Ferdinand  and  Albert  presented  their  requests 
to  Pius  IV.  The  two  papers  were  essentially  the  same.  In  the 
name  of  the  princes  of  the  empire,  after  demanding  the  communion 
in  both  elements  for  the  laity,  they  proceeded  to  argue  earnestly  for 
the  other  concession.  Perhaps  the  decided  opposition  of  the  council 
to  the  principle  of  sacerdotal  marriage  had  produced  an  influence 
upon  them ;  perhaps  they  had  found  themselves  obliged  to  yield  some 
of  their  own  views  in  order  to  secure  the  cooperation  of  the  Teutonic 
hierarchy ;  be  this  as  it  may,  their  demands  were  greatly  abated.  In 
place  of  asking,  as  before,  the  privilege  for  the  clergy  at  large,  they 
now  reduced  their  entreaties  to  the  simple  request  of  allowing  such 
Catholic  priests  as  had  entered  into  matrimony,  to  retain  their  wives 
and  perform  their  functions,  which  they  assured  the  pope  was  abso¬ 
lutely  essential  to  the  preservation  of  the  fragments  of  the  church 
still  doing  battle  with  the  prevailing  heresies  throughout  Germany.2 


1  Pallavicini,  Lib.  xxn.  c.  10. 

2  Goldast.  II.  380.— Le  Plat,  VI. 
310,  312. 

It  is  observable  from  this  that  many 
priests  left  the  church  and  married 
without  formally  embracing  the  Lu¬ 
theran  faith,  and  a  return  of  these  was 
anticipated  from  a  relaxation  of  the 
canons.  Others,  as  may  be  gathered 
from  various  references  above,  married 
and  still  performed  their  regular  duties. 
Of  these,  some  no  doubt  acted  in  virtue 
of  dispensations  granted  by  the  nuncios 
of  Paul  III.,  after  the  promulgation  of 
the  Interim,  but  many  did  so  in  utter 
contempt  of  discipline.  An  illustrative 
example  of  the  latter  class  may  be 
found  in  the  well-known  Stanislas 
Orzechowski,  whose  marriage,  notwith¬ 
standing  his  prominent  position,  shows 
the  laxity  of  opinion  which  prevailed 
on  the  subject.  As  priest  and  canon 
of  Przemysl  in  Poland,  his  marriage 


naturally  gave  great  offence  to  his  col¬ 
leagues,  which  was  not  diminished  by 
a  dissertation  which  he  wrote  in  favor 
of  priestly  marriage.  This,  he  subse¬ 
quently  claimed,  had  been  prepared  for 
the  purpose  of  laying  before  the  coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent,  and  its  publication  had 
arisen  from  the  indiscretion  of  a  friend 
to  whom  he  had  entrusted  it.  Some¬ 
what  contaminated  with  the  new  ideas 
by  his  education  at  Wittenberg,  he 
sturdily  refused  to  give  up  either  his  wife 
or  his  position.  His  consequent  excom¬ 
munication  he  disregarded,  though  ac¬ 
cording  to  his  own  account  he  gave  up 
on  marrying  his  benefices  and  the 
ministry  (Lettera  a  Guilio  III.  trad,  di 
B.  Leoni,  Milano,  anno.  VI.),  and  not¬ 
withstanding  this  he  had  a  very  narrow 
escape  from  the  death-penalty,  and  his 
condemnation  excited  a  commotion 
throughout  Poland  that  was  very  favor¬ 
able  to  the  spread  of  the  reformed 
opinions  (Orichovii  Annales,  pp.  71-84, 


NEGOTIATIONS. 


541 


They  likewise  asked  that  in  such  places  as  could  not  obtain  a  suffi¬ 
ciency  of  pastors,  the  bishops  should  be  empowered  to  ordain  married 
laymen  of  approved  piety,  learning,  and  fitness. 

These  appeals  were  successful  as  far  as  communion  in  both  elements 
was  concerned,  for,  on  April  16th,  Pius  granted  that  concession  under 
certain  conditions.  The  subject  of  priestly  marriage,  however,  he 
still  postponed,  and  on  June  17  th  we  find  Ferdinand  writing  to 
Cardinal  Morone,  to  express  his  thanks  for  what  he  had  obtained, 
and  to  urge  the  other  subject  on  the  consideration  of  the  papal 
court.  He  had  instructed  his  ambassador,  he  said,  to  press  it 
earnestly,  and  he  besought  the  Cardinal  to  aid  in  so  pious  and 
advantageous  a  work.1 

Nor  was  this  the  only  means  which  Ferdinand,  then  verging 


108,  Ed.  1854).  At  length  the  feeling 
against  the  pretensions  of  the  church 
became  so  strong  that  the  Diet  of  1552 
removed  all  the  civil  and  temporal 
penalties  of  excommunication,  so  that 
he  triumphed  for  the  time.  When  in 
1556,  the  legate  Lippomani  held  a 
synod  at  Lovictz,  he  called  to  account 
those  who  had  connived  at  so  great  an 
irregularity.  They  denied  granting 
the  dispensation,  saying  that  they  had 
only  suspended  the  censures  until  the 
leasure  of  the  pope  should  he  known  ; 
ut  at  the  same  time  many  prelates 
used  all  their  influence  with  Lippomani 
to  obtain  one.  Lippomani  declared 
that  he  had  no  power  to  grant  it,  nor 
would  he  do  so  if  he  could,  seeing  that 
Orzechowski  defended  himself  on  hereti¬ 
cal  grounds  (Concil.  Lovitiens.  — 
Labbei  et  Coleti  Supp.  T.  V.  p.  702). 
In  1561  Orzechowski,  in  his  address  to 
the  synod  of  Warsaw,  admitted  that  he 
had  sinned,  but  claimed  that  he  had 
been  punished  sufficiently — “  Si  quis 
igitur  a  me  quaerat ;  Num  uxorem 
sacerdos  duxerim  ?  Duxisse  me  fatebor. 
Peccasti  igitur?  Peccavi.  Poenas  ergo 
peccati  debes?  Debui  et  persolvi  ” 
(Doctrina  de  Sacerd.  Coelibatu,  Yarsa- 
viae,  1801).  He  therefore  complained 
of  the  persecutions  to  which  he  was 
exposed  on  account  of  his  wife,  and  he 
petitioned  both  the  pope  and  the  council 
of  Trent  for  a  dispensation.  While  the 
Tridentine  fathers  refused  it,  some  au¬ 
thors  assert  that  it  was  granted  by 
Pius  IY.  to  him  as  an  exceptional  case 
“tibi  soli  Orichovio,”  but  careful  inves¬ 
tigation  has  failed  to  discover  the  Bull, 


and,  according  to  Zaccaria  the  pope 
merely  sent  secret  orders  to  his  legate 
Commendone  not  to  allow  Orzechowski 
to  be  molested,  but  at  the  same  time  to 
give  no  publicity  to  an  act  of  tolerance 
in  contravention  of  the  canons  of  the 
council  of  Trent  (Gregoire,  Hist  du 
Manage  des  Pretres  en  France,  pp. 
51-55). 

In  his  answer  to  Fricius,  Orzechowski 
assumes  that  he  was  absolved  from  his 
excommunication  by  the  Legate — 
“  Prseterea  a  sententia  excommunica- 
tionis,  qua  eram  a  Joanne  Episcopo 
Premisliensi,  ob  hanc  eandem  uxorem, 
ex  ecclesia  pulsus,  a  Legato  Komani 
Petri  absolutus  cum  sim,  nihil  feci 
contra  ilium”  ( ap .  Doctrin.  de  Sacerd. 
Ccelibat.  p.  24).  He  also  alleges  the 
extraordinary  excuse  that  he  abandoned 
the  priesthood  before  his  marriage. 

The  history  of  Orzechowski,  with 
probably  a  less  fortunate  result,  is  no 
doubt  that  of  innumerable  others, 
whose  obscurity  has  prevented  their 
sufferings  from  being  known  beyond 
their  own  narrow  circle. 

Strype  (Annals,  I.  485-6)  asserts 
that  after  the  accession  of  Queen  Eliza¬ 
beth  the  Catholic  emissaries  in  Eng¬ 
land  had  a  general  dispensation  to 
marry,  in  order  to  assist  their  conceal¬ 
ment  and  to  further  the  design  of  creat¬ 
ing  schism  in  the  Anglican  church. 
He  gives  as  his  authority  one  Malachi 
Malone,  a  converted  Irish  friar. 

1  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  YI.  331. 


542 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


rapidly  to  the  grave,  adopted  to  attain  the  object  of  his  unwearied 
pursuit.  George  Wicelius  had  throwTn  aside  the  monastic  gown  in 
1531,  to  embrace  the  errors  of  Lutheranism,  but  had  returned  to  the 
old  religion.  His  learning  and  piety  earned  for  him  a  deserved  rep¬ 
utation,  and  elevated  him  to  the  position  of  imperial  councillor,  where 
his  talents  were  devoted  to  the  endless  task  of  bringing  about  a 
reconciliation  between  the  churches.  George  Cassander,  equally 
eminent,  had  never  incurred  the  imputation  of  apostasy,  but  had 
labored  with  tireless  industry  to  convert  his  erring  brethren  from 
heresy  to  the  true  faith.  Men  like  these  might  perhaps  be  heard 
when  the  voice  of  princes  and  prelates,  actuated  by  motives  of  per¬ 
sonal  advantage,  met  a  deaf  ear;  and  Ferdinand  applied  to  them  for 
disquisitions  on  the  subject.1  Before  their  labors  were  concluded 
the  monarch  was  dead  (July  25,  1564),  but  his  son  Maximilian  II. 
inherited  his  father’s  ideas,  and  gladly  made  use  of  the  opinions 
which  the  learned  Catholic  doctors  had  no  hesitation  in  expressing. 

Both  took  strong  ground  against  celibacy.  Cassander,  while 
defending  the  church  for  originally  introducing  the  rule,  deplored 
the  terrible  and  abominable  scandals  which  its  untimely  enforcement 
caused  throughout  the  church,  and  he  urged  that  the  reasons  which 
had  led  to  its  introduction  not  only  existed  no  longer,  but  had  even 
become  arguments  for  its  abrogation,  since  now  the  choice  lay  only 
between  married  priests  and  concubinarians.  He  declared  it  to  be 
the  source  of  numerous  evils,  chief  among  which  was  promiscuous 
and  unbridled  licentiousness,  and  he  added  that  the  already  scanty 
ranks  of  the  priesthood  were  deprived  of  the  accessions  which  were 
so  necessary,  since  men  of  a  religious  turn  of  mind  were  prevented 
from  taking  orders  by  the  universal  wickedness  which  prevailed 
under  the  excuse  of  celibacy,  -while  pious  parents  kept  their  sons 
from  entering  the  church  for  fear  of  debauching  their  morals.  On 
the  other  hand,  those  who  sought  a  life  of  ease  and  license  were 
attracted  to  the  holy  calling  which  they  disgraced.  He  was  «ven 
willing  to  permit  marriage  in  orders,  arguing  that  it  was  only  a 


1  This  was  not  his  first  attempt  of 
this  kind.  In  1540  he  had  called  upon 
John  Cochlaeus  to  examine  the  Confes¬ 
sion  of  Augsburg  and  report  as  to  what 
points  were  reconcilable  with  Cathol¬ 
icism  and  what  were  not.  Cochlaeus 
responded  in  an  elaborate  dissertation, 
wherein  he  took  strong  ground  against 
abandoning  celibacy,  but  admitted  that 


he  was  utterly  unable  to  suggest  any 
remedy  for  the  evils  resulting  from  it, 
— especially  the  “scandalosus  presby- 
terorum  in  seculo  concubinatus,  pne- 
sertim  apud  plebanos  in  pagis,  qui  com- 
muniter  cum  ancillis  rem  domesticam 
gubernare  necessitate  quadam  cogun- 
tur.” — Le  Plat,  II.  667. 


EFFORTS  OF  MAXIMILIAN  II. 


543 


question  of  canon  law,  in  which  faith  and  doctrine  were  not  involved. 
As  regards  the  monastic  orders,  while  fully  appreciating  the  prin¬ 
ciples  upon  which  the  system  was  founded,  he  warmly  deplored  the 
corruption  engendered  by  wealth  and  luxury.  Though  the  convents 
contained  many  pious  and  holy  men,  still  for  the  most  part  religion 
was  forgotten  in  the  observance  of  ceremonies  that  had  lost  their 
significance,  and  nothing  could  be  more  licentious  and  profane  than 
the  life  led  in  many  of  the  monasteries.1  Wicelius  was  equally  severe 
in  his  denunciations  of  the  clerical  licentiousness  attributable  to  the 
rule  of  celibacy,  and  concluded  his  tract  by  attacking  the  supineness, 
blindness,  and  perversity  of  the  prelates  wdio  suffered  such  foulness 
to  exist  everywhere  among  the  priesthood,  in  contempt  of  Christ, 
and  to  the  burdening  of  their  consciences.2 

It  was  already  evident  that  both  the  great  objects  for  which  the 
council  of  Trent  had  ostensibly  been  assembled  were  failures ;  that 
it  would  effect  as  little  for  the  purification  of  the  church  as  for  the 
reconciliation  of  the  heretics.  Perhaps  Maximilian  felt  that  under 
these  circumstances  no  one  could  deny  the  necessity  of  such  changes 
as  would  at  least  afford  a  chance  of  the  reformation  that  could  no 
longer  be  expected  of  the  Tridentine  canons ;  perhaps  he  felt  strength¬ 
ened  by  the  support  of  his  ecclesiastical  counsellors  and  controver¬ 
sialists  ;  perhaps,  with  the  zealous  hopefulness  of  youth,  he  felt  a 
confidence  of  which  age  and  many  disappointments  had  deprived 
his  father ;  or  perhaps  he  was  encouraged  by  the  concession  to  his 
subjects  and  to  those  of  Albert  of  Bavaria,  of  the  communion  in 
both  elements,  not  knowing  that  in  two  short  years  it  would  be 
withdrawn.  Certain  it  is  that  in  a  negotiation  with  the  Bishop  of 
Yintimiglia,  papal  nuncio  at  his  court,  he  lost  no  time  in  renewing, 
with  increased  energy,  the  effort  to  obtain  the  recognition  of  married 
priests.  After  the  departure  of  the  nuncio,  he  addressed,  in  No¬ 
vember,  1564,  a  most  pressing  demand  to  Pius  IV.,  in  which  he 
declared  that  the  matter  brooked  no  further  postponement ;  that 
throughout  Germany,  and  especially  in  his  dominions,  there  was  the 
greatest  need  of  proper  ministers  and  pastors ;  that  there  was  no 
other  measure  which  would  retain  them  in  the  Catholic  church,  from 
which,  day  by  day,  they  were  withdrawing,  principally  from  this 


1  G-.  Cassandri  Consult,  xxiii.,  xxv. 
(Le  Plat,  VI.  761-2,  783-4). 

2  Wicelii  Via  Regia,  De  Conjug. 
Sacerd. 


Both  these  tracts  were  printed  with 
other  controversial  matter,  by  Her¬ 
mann  Conring,  4to.  Helmstadt,  1569. 


544 


THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT. 


cause.  He  assured  the  Holy  Father  that  the  danger  was  constantly 
increasing,  and  that  he  feared  a  further  delay  would  render  even  this 
remedy  powerless  to  prevent  the  total  destruction  of  the  old  religion. 
If  only  this  were  granted  to  the  clergy,  even  as  the  cup  had  been 
communicated  to  the  laity,  he  hoped  for  an  immediate  improvement. 
The  bishops  could  then  exercise  their  authority  over  those  who  at 
present  were  beyond  their  control,  as  unrecognized  by  the  church ; 
and  so  thoroughly  was  this  lawless  condition  of  affairs  understood 
that  a  refuge  was  sought  in  his  provinces  by  those  disreputable 
pastors  who  were  banished  from  the  Lutheran  states  on  account  of 
their  disorderly  lives.1  His  brother,  the  Archduke  Charles,  was 
equally  urgent,  in  a  letter  which  he  addressed,  a  few  days  later,  to 
the  Pope,  repeating  the  same  arguments,  and  assuring  him  that  the 
only  hope  for  the  true  religion  in  his  dominions  was  to  find  some 
means  of  admitting  the  services  of  a  married  clergy.2 

Ferdinand  and  Maximilian  were  actuated  in  these  persevering 
efforts  not  merely  by  the  desire  of  gratifying  the  wishes  of  their 
people,  or  of  remedying  the  depravity  of  the  ecclesiastical  body.  It 
had  been  a  favorite  project  with  the  father,  warmly  adopted  by  the 
son,  to  heal  the  differences  between  the  two  religions,  and  to  restore 
to  the  church  its  ancient  and  prosperous  unity.  In  their  opinion, 
and  in  that  of  many  eminent  men,  the  main  obstacle  to  this  was  the 
question  of  celibacy.  It  was  evidently  hopeless  to  expect  this  sacri¬ 
fice  of  the  Lutheran  pastors,  while  numerous  members  of  the  Cath¬ 
olic  church  regarded  the  change  as  essential  to  the  purification  of 
their  own  establishment.  The  only  mode  of  effecting  so  desirable  a 
reconciliation  was  therefore  to  persuade  the  pope  to  exercise  the 
power  of  dispensation  which  the  council  of  Trent  had  admitted  to 
be  inherent  in  his  high  office.  The  spirit  of  the  papal  court,  how¬ 
ever,  was  that  which  Pallavicini  attributes  to  the  council — that  the 
heretics  were  to  be  cut  off,  and  not  to  be  cajoled  into  returning. 
Pius  IV.  himself  was  not  personally  averse  to  the  plan  so  persist¬ 
ently  urged  upon  him,  but  those  around  him  saw  greater  dangers  in 
concession  than  in  refusal.  De  Thou,  indeed,  says  that  he  was 
inclined  to  grant  the  privilege  for  the  territories  of  Maximilian,  but 
that  Philip  II.,  at  the  instigation  of  Cardinal  Pacheco,  fearing  an 
example  so  dangerous  to  his  turbulent  and  excitable  subjects  in  the 


1  Goldast.  II.  381. 


2  Le  Plat,  VI.  335. 


ALL  CONCESSIONS  REFUSED. 


545 


Netherlands,  opposed  it  strenuously,  and  sent  Don  Pedro  d’Avila  to 
Rome,  who  persuaded  the  pope  to  elude  the  demand,  by  keeping 
matters  in  suspense,  and  by  holding  out  prospects  of  accommodation 
destined  never  to  be  accomplished.1 

This  is  probably  not  strictly  correct.  Maximilian’s  demand  had 
perhaps  been  rendered  more  pressing  than  respectful  by  the  necessity 
of  conciliating  his  people  in  view  of  the  war  with  John  of  Transyl¬ 
vania  and  the  Turks.  Its  tone  was  not  relished  at  Rome,  nor  could 
the  papacy  be  expected  to  listen  with  as  much  patience  to  remon¬ 
strances  from  a  prince  who  had  just  grasped  the  reins  of  power  as  it 
had  to  those  of  the  mature  and  experienced  Ferdinand,  especially 
as  Maximilian  had  been  shrewdly  suspected  of  secretly  leaning  to 
the  tenets  of  the  Reformers.2  The  response  to  Maximilian  was  there¬ 
fore  of  the  sharpest.  Pius  replied,  arguing  against  clerical  marriage 
and  positively  declaring  that  it  would  not  be  tolerated,3  and  to  pre¬ 
vent  further  trouble  Cardinal  Commendone  was  sent  to  warn  him 
that  any  interference  wTith  the  interests  of  religion  would  be  visited 
with  the  severest  penalties ;  in  fact,  he  was  threatened  with  depriva¬ 
tion  of  the  imperial  title,  and  a  convocation  of  the  Catholic  princes 
for  the  purpose  of  electing  a  successor.4 

The  Catholic  church  thus  definitely  accepted  the  ancient  canons, 
erected  them  into  an  article  of  faith,  and  resolved  to  meet  whatever 
consequences  might  flow  from  their  maintenance.  In  the  existing 
condition  of  clerical  morals,  we  are  almost  justified  in  saying  that  it 
assumed  the  position  attributed  by  St.  Bernard  to  the  Manichgeans 
of  the  twelfth  century — that  they  took  vows  of  continence  in  order 
to  cover  their  incontinence,  and  that  marriage  was  the  only  sexual 
relation  which  they  regarded  as  a  sin.5  We  shall  see  hereafter  wFat 
were  the  results  of  this  abnormal  position. 


1  De  Thou,  Lib.  xxxvii. 

2  In  1560  Ferdinand  addressed  to 

Pius  IY.  an  earnest  request  that  a 
special  dispensation  might  he  granted 

to  Maximilian,  then  king  of  Bohemia, 

authorizing  him  to  receive  the  com¬ 
munion  in  both  elements.  In  this  he 
stated  that  his  son’s  scruples  of  con¬ 
science  on  the  subject  were  so  strong 
that  he  had  abstained  for  three  years 
from  taking  the  sacrament.  In  the 
secret  instructions  to  the  Imperial  am¬ 
bassador  accompanying  this  request, 


the  latter  is  furnished  with  elaborate 
reasons  to  prove  that  the  suspicions 
entertained  at  Rome  of  Maximilian’s 
orthodoxy  were  unfounded. — Le  Plat, 
Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  IY.  619- 
23. 

3  Le  Plat,  YI.  336. 

4  Struvii  Corp.  Hist.  German.  II. 
1097. 

5  Bernardi  Sermo.  66,  in  Cantica, 
cap.  i. 

35 


XXIX. 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


The  great  council,  on  which  so  long  had  hung  the  hopes  of  the 
Christian  world,  had  at  last  been  held.  The  reformation  of  the 
church,  postponed  by  the  skilful  policy  of  the  popes,  had  been 
reached  in  the  closing  sessions,  and  had  been  hurriedly  provided  for. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  regulations  which  concerned  the  morals  of  the 
clergy  were  sufficient  for  their  purpose,  if  only  they  could  be  en¬ 
forced,  yet  as  they  were  but  the  hundredth  repetition  of  an  endeavor 
to  conquer  human  nature,  which  had  always  previously  failed,  even 
those  who  enacted  them  could  have  felt  little  faith  in  their  efficacy. 
August  Baumgartner,  the  Bavarian  ambassador,  in  his  address  to 
the  council,  June  27th,  1562,  had  alluded  to  the  prevailing  belief 
that  any  comprehensive  effort  to  enforce  the  chastity  required  by  the 
canons  would  result  in  driving  the  mass  of  the  Catholic  clergy  over 
to  Protestantism.1  Since  continence  was  held  by  them  to  be  im¬ 
possible,  it  was  thought  that  they  would  prefer  to  marry  their  con¬ 
cubines  as  Lutherans  rather  than  give  them  up  as  Catholics.  Pos¬ 
sibly  the  fear  of  such  untoward  result  may  explain  the  slender  effect 
which  can  be  discerned  from  a  scheme  of  reform  so  laboriously 
reached  and  so  pompously  heralded  as  the  panacea  for  the  woes 
which  were  destroying  the  church. 

Although  Catherine  de  Medicis  and  her  sons  refused  to  allow  the 
council  to  be  formally  published  in  France,  yet  she  permitted  its 
decrees  to  be  freely  circulated,  and  her  bishops  were  at  liberty  to 
adopt  them  as  the  code  of  discipline  in  their  dioceses.2  The  diffi- 


1  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  V.  340. 

2  The  council  of  Trent  has  never 
been  received  in  France.  For  a  re- 


sum<5  of  the  efforts  made  to  obtain  its 
adoption  and  their  uniform  lack  of 
success,  see  Chavart,  Le  Celibat  des 
Pretres,  pp.  507-12. 


RECEPTION  OF  THE  COUNCIL. 


547 


culties  raised  by  the  Emperor  Maximilian  on  the  score  of  priestly 
celibacy  were  met  with  a  vigor  on  the  part  of  Pius  IV.  which  savored 
of  the  thirteenth  rather  than  the  sixteenth  century.  Philip  II.,  after 
some  hesitation,  ordered  the  reception  of  the  council  in  all  his  do¬ 
minions,  which  extended  from  Naples  to  the  North  Sea;1  and  Poland, 
despite  some  opposition  from  an  ambitious  prelate,  submitted  to  it 
before  the  year  1564  was  ended.2 

As  an  authoritative  exposition  of  the  law  of  the  church  of  Christ, 
conceived  and  elaborated  under  the  influence  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
commanded  for  implicit  observance  by  the  Vicegerent  of  God ;  as 
the  expression  of  the  needs  and  wants  of  the  Catholic  faith,  wrought 
by  the  concentrated  energy  and  wisdom  of  the  leading  doctors  of 
Christendom,  and  transmitted  for  practical  application  through  the 
wondrous  machinery  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy,  it  should  have  had 
an  immediate  influence  on  the  evils  which  it  was  intended  to  eradi¬ 
cate.  Those  evils  had  confessedly  done  much  to  create  and  foster 
the  schism  under  which  the  church  was  reeling ;  their  magnitude 
was  admitted  by  all,  and  no  one  ventured  to  defend  or  to  palliate 
them.  Their  removal  was  acknowledged  to  be  a  necessity  of  the 
gravest  character,  and  every  adherent  of  Catholicism  was  bound  to 
lend  his  aid  to  the  good  work.  What,  then,  was  accomplished  by 
the  Council  which  had  for  so  long  a  period  labored  ostensibly  with 
the  object  of  restoring  Latin  Christianity  to  its  primitive  purity  ? 

Pius  IV.  rested  satisfied  with  promulgating  and  confirming  the 
decrees  of  the  council,  and  waited  to  see  them  produce  their  destined 
effect.  In  1566,  however,  he  was  succeeded  by  Pius  V.,  whose  ex¬ 
perience  as  grand  inquisitor  had  doubtless  rendered  him  familiar  with 


1  In  August,  1564,  Philip  II.  had 
ordered  its  publication  in  the  Low 
Countries,  but  Margaret  of  Parma  had 
hesitated  to  obey  in  consequence  of  the 
intense  opposition  excited  by  its  inter¬ 
ference  with  local  liberties  and  fran¬ 
chises,  as  it  completed  and  crowned  the 
centralizing  policy  which  rendered  the 
papacy  supreme  over  all  local  churches. 
It  was  not  until  Dec.  18,  1565,  that  it 
was  finally  promulgated,  under  impera¬ 
tive  commands  from  Philip.  It  is  char¬ 
acteristic  of  Philip’s  habitual  double¬ 
dealing,  however,  that  while  his  public 
orders  commanded  the  reception  of  the 
Council  without  exception,  he  secretly 
reserved  the  rights  of  himself  and  his 
subjects  (Le  Plat,  Concil.  Trident.  VII. 
Pnef.  p.  vi.). 


2  By  a  Bull  dated  July  18,  1564, 
Pius  IV.  fixed  May  1,  1564,  as  the 
time  when  the  Tridentine  canons  be¬ 
came  the  law  of  the  church.  His 
letter  to  the  Archbishop  of  Bremen 
with  an  official  copy  and  directions 
as  to  its  promulgation,  is  dated  Oct. 
3d  of  the  same  year  (Hartzheim  VII. 

t  would  seem  to  be  a  work  of  super¬ 
erogation  for  a  learned  Italian  lawyer 
to  write  an  elaborate  treatise,  dedicated 
to  Pius  IV.,  against  the  abolition  of 
celibacy,  yet  Marquardo  dei  Susani 
thought  it  worth  while  to  do  this 
in  his  “  Tractatus  de  Coelibatu  Sacer- 
dotum  non  abrogando,”  4to.  Venice, 
1565. 


548 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


the  prevailing  neglect  of  ecclesiastical  discipline,  while  his  unbending 
temper  made  him  rigorous  in  his  determination  to  restore  it.  One 
of  the  earliest  acts  of  his  pontificate  was  the  publication  of  a  Bull 
commanding  the  ordinaries  of  all  churches  to  put  in  force  the  Tri¬ 
dentine  canons  respecting  concubinary  priests,  thus  showing  that 
already  they  were  treated  with  contempt,1  while  a  special  mandate 
on  the  subject,  addressed  to  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  describes 
the  unchecked  corruption  of  the  German  priesthood  as  threatening 
the  speedy  destruction  of  the  Catholic  religion  there.2  Two  years 
later  he  found  it  necessary  to  issue  another  Bull,  directed  against 
darker  crimes,  the  deplorable  prevalence  of  which  can  hardly  be 
attributed  to  any  additional  and  unaccustomed  vigor  in  removing  the 
female  companions  of  the  clergy,3  for  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg, 
in  reply  to  a  fresh  command  to  reform  his  church,  had  replied  that 
he  and  his  suffragans  had  never  ceased  to  attempt  it,  hut  that  all  their 
efforts  had  been  fruitless  and  that  he  despaired  of  success.4  Even  a 
worse  experience  befell  Bernardt  Basfeldt,  Bishop  of  Munster,  who, 
in  his  synod  of  1566,  published  a  papal  brief  commanding  the  dis¬ 
missal  of  clerical  concubines,  for  his  action  roused  the  fury  of  his 
canons  to  such  a  degree  that  they  forced  him  to  resign  his  bishopric 
and  spend  the  rest  of  his  days  in  obscurity.  He  was  succeeded  by 
Johann  von  Hoya,  Bishop  of  Osnabruck  and  President  of  the  Im¬ 
perial  Chamber,  a  man  distinguished  by  his  birth  and  learning,  but 
who  speedily  wearied  of  the  conflict  and  sought  peace  by  imitating 
the  example  of  his  subordinates.5 

In  1571  Pius  undertook  another  subject  of  reform.  Notwith¬ 
standing  the  decree  of  the  council  that  any  action  of  clerical  fathers 
for  the  benefit  of  their  offspring  should  be  considered  as  fraudulent, 


1  Bull.  Cum  primum  £  12  (Mag. 
Bull.  Roman.  II.  180). 

2  “  Plerosque  .  .  .  abjecto  Dei  timore 
et  sine  ulla  hominum  verecundia,  con- 
cubinas  palam  habere,  easque  perinde, 
ac  si  legitimae  eoruin  uxores  essent, 
in  ecclesiis  et  aliis  locis  publicis  con- 
spici,  vulgo  iisdem,  quibus  illi  vocan- 
tur,  officiorum  et  dignitatum  nomini¬ 
bus  appellatas ;  eoque  haereses  tanto- 
pere  crevisse,  ac  multiplicatas  fuisse; 
quod  ecclesiastici  tarn  turpiter  et  ne- 
quiter  vivendo,  omnem  plane  existima- 
tionem  amiserint,  et  in  summam  non 
apud  haereticos  modo,  sed  etiam  Ca- 
tholicos  contemptionem  venerint  .  .  . 
Nisi  enim  tarn  nefandum  concubinatus 


vitium  extirpetur,  nullam  spem  reli- 
quam  esse  videmus  reprimi  posse  haere- 
ses.  Sed  timemus  (quod  Deus  avertat) 
ne  brevi  tempore  istae,  quae  supersunt, 
Catholicorum  reliquiae  amittantur,  et 
omnis  prorsus  Catholicae  religionis 
cultus  apud  vos  extinguatur.” — Breve 
Pii  V.  ad  Archiep.  Salzburg.  (Hartz- 
heim  VII.  231). 

3  Bull.  Horrendum  (Mag.  Bull.  Ro¬ 
man.  II.  267). 

*  Dalham,  Concil.  Salisburgens.  p. 

556. 

5  De  Thou,  Hist.  Univers.  Lib. 
xxxviii.  ann.  1566. 


REFORMS  OF  PIUS  V. 


549 


the  transmission  of  ecclesiastical  property  to  such  illegitimate  heirs 
continued  almost  unchecked,  and  Pius  recognized  the  necessity  of 
further  legislation  to  diminish  the  abuse.  His  Bull  on  the  subject  is 
drawn  up  with  a  care  and  minuteness  which  show  the  magnitude  of 
the  evil  and  the  extreme  difficulty  of  preventing  it.1  Nor  was  there 
only  the  need  of  preserving  the  possessions  of  the  church ;  the  scan¬ 
dal  of  sacerdotal  families  required  repression,  and  all  other  means 
having  apparently  failed,  in  1572  another  decretal  declared  that  such 
children  were  incapable  of  receiving  even  the  private  and  patrimonial 
property  of  their  fathers.2  These  successive  edicts  are  a  full  confes¬ 
sion  that  the  long-promised  reformation  w*as  a  failure,  and  that,  while 
the  council  might  regulate  doctrine,  it  was  utterly  powerless  to  enforce 
discipline.  The  papal  fulminations  proved  equally  powrerless,  and 
Home  itself  apparently  winked  at  contraventions  of  the  rule,  which 
could  be  rendered  profitable  by  the  prerogative  of  issuing  dispensa¬ 
tions.  In  1610  the  Synod  of  Augsburg  found  it  necessary  to  declare 
that  it  would  enforce  the  Tridentine  canons  prohibiting  the  illegiti¬ 
mate  sons  of  priests  from  holding  preferment  in  their  father’s  bene¬ 
fices,  notwithstanding  what  dispensations  they  might  produce  to  the 
contrary.3 

Yet  even  these  legislative  labors  of  the  pope  are  less  instructive 
than  the  war  which  he  commenced  against  the  courtesans  of  Rome. 
If  the  new  enactments  could  have  been  expected  to  command  respect, 
the  example  should  have  been  set  in  the  Holy  City  itself,  but  Pius 
IV.  had  allowed  the  most  public  and  scandalous  immorality  to  flourish 
unchecked  under  his  immediate  supervision.  In  1538  the  “  Con¬ 
silium  de  Emendanda  Ecclesia”  had  animadverted  upon  the  cynical 
licentiousness  of  the  Roman  clergy  in  terms  which  show  that  not 
much  improvement  had  taken  place  since  Petrarch’s  description  of 
the  papal  court,4  and  the  thirty  years  which  had  intervened  had  not 
served  to  purify  it.  Pius  Y.  felt  the  disgrace  keenly,  and  resolved 
on  its  suppression.  He  at  first  proposed  to  put  an  end  to  the  nefari- 


1  Bull.  Quse  ordini. — How  difficult 
was  the  task  thus  undertaken  is  ad¬ 
mitted  in  the  Bull  itself  — “  Quia  vero 
difficile  nimis  esset,  prassentes  quocum- 
que  illis  opus  erit  proferre  ”  (Ibid.  II. 
323-4). 

2  Bull.  Ad  Bomanum.  (Mag.  Bull. 

Roman.  II.  325). 

8  Synod.  August,  ann.  1610  P.  in. 
c.  iii.  $  1  (Hartzheim  IX.  59). 


4  In  hac  etiam  urbe  meretrices  ut 
matron®  incedunt  per  urbem,  seu  mula 
vehuntur,  quas  affectantur  de  media  die 
nobiles  fainiliares  cardinalium  clerici- 
que.  Nulla  in  urbe  vidimus  hanc  cor- 
ruptionem,  praeterquam  in  hac  omnium 
exemplari,  habitant  etiam  insignes 
aedes :  corrigendus  etiam  hie  turpis 
abusus. — Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil. 
Trident.  II.  604. 


550 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


ous  trade,  and  to  banish  all  the  public  women  who  would  not  give  a 
pledge  of  reformation  by  an  immediate  marriage.  Forced  to  relin¬ 
quish  this  measure  as  impracticably  harsh,  he  contented  himself  by 
restricting  their  residence  to  certain  houses,  and  forbade  their  plying 
their  vocation  in  the  streets  by  day  or  night.  Although  he  thus 
admitted  the  necessity  of  the  evil,  and  endeavored  to  restrain  only 
its  public  manifestation,  even  this  moderate  attempt  at  reform  was 
deemed  insufferable.  The  clergy  were  ashamed  to  offer  opposition 
openly,  but  found  no  difficulty  in  urging  the  Senate  to  strenuous 
resistance.  The  remonstrance  made  by  that  body  shows  not  only 
the  frightful  extent  of  the  prevalent  immorality,  but  also  the  settled 
conviction  that  immorality  was  inseparable  from  celibacy.  It  was 
represented  that  if  the  proposed  rules  were  enforced,  the  prosperity 
of  the  city  would  be  destroyed  and  the  rents  of  houses  be  reduced 
to  nothing ;  moreover,  it  was  urged  that,  amid  so  vast  a  number  of 
men  condemned  to  celibacy,  if  any  such  restrictions  were  put  in 
force,  it  would  be  impossible  to  preserve  the  virtue  of  the  wives  and 
daughters  of  the  citizens.  The  contest  was  stubbornly  continued 
until  at  length  Pius  was  driven  to  declare  that,  if  any  further  diffi¬ 
culty  were  interposed,  he  would  abandon  the  city.1 

In  spite  of  these  well-meant  but  nugatory  efforts  of  Pius,  the 
immorality  of  the  papal  court  itself  and  of  its  highest  dignitaries 
was  admitted  by  a  Bull  which  Sixtus  V.  promulgated  in  1586.  In 
decreeing  that  no  one  who  had  children,  even  if  they  were  legitimate, 
should  be  eligible  to  the  cardinalate,  he  took  care  to  let  the  world 
understand  the  cause  of  the  restriction  by  declaring  that  in  no  other 
way  could  evidence  be  had  of  the  observance  of  their  vows.2 

If  Pius  Y.  met  with  opposition  in  the  task  of  purifying  the  Augean 
stable  of  Rome,  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  encouraged  and  stimulated 
by  his  example,  found  himself  involved  in  a  more  dangerous  quarrel 
when  he  attempted,  in  the  equally  demoralized  city  of  Milan,  to 
enforce  respect  for  the  decrees  of  Trent.  In  1569  he  undertook  to 
reform  the  canons  of  S.  Maria  della  Scala,  whose  licentious  mode  of 
life  was  a  scandal  to  the  faithful.  So  persistently  did  they  deny  their 
subjection  to  his  archiepiscopal  jurisdiction,  that,  after  a  long  discus¬ 
sion,  his  only  resource  for  vindicating  his  authority  was  excommuni- 


1  De  Thou,  Lib.  xxxix. 

3  Bull.  Postquam  verus  (Mag.  Bull. 


Roman.  II.  567) — “  Certum  nequeat 
suae  testimonium  continentheexhibere.” 


REFORMS  OF  ST.  CHARLES  BORROMEO. 


551 


cation.  The  contumacious  canons  were  still  indisposed  to  yield,  and, 
assembling  in  their  church,  they  maltreated  his  messenger.  Think¬ 
ing  that  his  presence  might  bring  them  to  reason,  he  ventured  him¬ 
self  to  expostulate  with  them,  and  found  them  drawn  up  in  their 
cemetery,  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  supported  by  soldiers  whom 
they  had  hired.  On  reaching  the  gate,  he  dismounted  from  his  mule 
and  advanced  towards  them  with  his  cross,  which  he  had  snatched 
from  his  cross-bearer.  Unabashed  by  this  symbol  at  once  of  religion 
and  authority,  the  mutinous  canons  rushed  upon  him  with  shouts  of 
“  Spagna,”  “  Spagna,”  brandishing  their  weapons  and  discharging 
their  fire-arms  at  the  cross  in  his  hands — fortunately  without  injuring 
him.  Having  thus  driven  him  off,  they  continued  for  some  time  in 
open  rebellion,  until  they  were  at  length  obliged  to  submit,  when 
Pius  Y.  and  Philip  II.  united  their  power  in  support  of  St.  Charles.1 

Still  greater  was  the  peril  to  which  the  saint  was  exposed  in  his 
quarrel  with  the  Umiliati.  They  were  a  branch  of  the  Benedictine 
order,  founded  in  1180  by  the  Milanese  who  escaped  the  destruction 
of  their  city  by  Frederic  Barbarossa.  Sharing  in  the  general  license 
of  the  age,  the  excesses  of  the  Umiliati  became  so  infamous  that 
they  surpassed  in  turpitude  the  worst  exploits  of  the  unbridled  youth 
of  the  city.  Supported  by  the  decretals  of  Pius,  in  1568  St. 
Charles  undertook  to  reduce  the  order  to  the  observance  of  monastic 
rule.  The  Umiliati  resisted  with  so  much  energy  and  success  that, 
after  two  years  of  contest,  they  were  still  defiant.  Regarding  St. 
Charles  as  the  cause  of  all  their  troubles,  Girolamo  Lignana,  Pro¬ 
vost  of  S.  Cristoforo  di  Vercelli,  who  assumed  their  leadership  in 
15T0,  engaged  a  monk  of  the  order  named  Girolamo  Donati  to 
murder  him.  The  blackness  of  the  deed  was  not  relieved  by  the 
circumstances  under  which  it  was  attempted.  While  the  holy  arch¬ 
bishop  was  absorbed  at  midnight  in  his  devotions,  Donati  stole  into 
the  oratory  and  discharged  full  upon  him  an  arquebuss  loaded  with 
slugs.  Some  of  the  missiles  struck  St.  Charles,  but  rebounded  to 
the  floor,  leaving  him  unhurt,  and  the  miraculous  nature  of  his 
escape  was  proved  by  the  depth  to  which  others  penetrated  the  walls. 
At  this  moment  the  policy  of  Philip  the  Catholic  supported  the  dis¬ 
affected  and  rebellious  monks,  and  for  some  time  yet  they  escaped 
the  retribution  due  to  their  manv  crimes,  but  at  length  those  con- 


1  Fleury,  Liv.  clxxi.  chap.  104  et  seq. 


552 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


cernecl  in  the  attempted  murder  were  caught  and  executed,  and  the 
order  of  the  Umiliati  was  broken  up.1 

These  examples  sufficiently  show  how  little  the  great  body  of 
ecclesiastics  was  disposed  to  submit  to  a  curtailment  of  the  license 
which  had  become  traditional,  and  how  little  respect  was  paid  either 
to  the  commands  of  the  great  (Ecumenic  Council,  or  to  the  general 
and  local  authorities.  It  is  easy  to  imagine  that  few  prelates  were 
so  disposed  to  court  martyrdom  as  the  saintly  Charles,  and  that 
churches  with  less  conscientious  pastors  easily  found  means  to 
purchase  or  compel  exemption  from  the  laws  which  bound  them  to 
morality.  In  fact,  President  d’Espeisses,  in  his  memorial  presented 
to  Henry  III.  in  1583,  against  the  publication  of  the  council  in 
France,  drew  one  of  his  arguments  from  the  greater  corruption  of 
the  Italian  church,  where,  though  the  council  was  received  without 
demur,  yet  none  of  its  orders  reforming  the  morals  of  the  clergy 
received  the  least  attention.2  That  the  Tridentine  canons  in  this 
respect  were  wholly  inefficacious  throughout  Italy,  and  that  the 
officials,  with  rare  exceptions,  did  not  venture  to  enforce  them,  can 
indeed  be  seen  in  the  series  of  provincial  councils  held  during  the 
remainder  of  the  century,  from  Lombardy  to  Naples. 

The  papacy  had  succeeded  in  crushing  the  reformers  who  had 
responded  in  so  many  Italian  cities  to  the  uprising  in  Germany;  it 
had  then  convoked  and  managed  at  its  will  the  great  Congress  of 
Catholic  Christendom  which  was  to  put  an  end  at  once  and  forever 
to  all  the  evils  which  had  led  to  the  schism  ;  it  had  every  opportunity 
and  every  motive  for  vindicating  itself  from  the  aspersions  of  its 
enemies,  and  yet  we  see  it  at  once  recur  to  the  old  machinery  of 
local  councils  enacting  canons  whose  frequency  and  wordy  severity 
are  the  inverse  measure  of  their  efficiency.  Had  the  promises  of 
reform  so  liberally  made  been  possible  in  their  fulfilment,  there  had 


1  Muratori,  Annal.  ann.  1569. — 
Henrion,  Hist,  des  Ordres  Religieux 
I.  196. — Fleury,  Liv.  clxxi.  chap.  26. 
— De  Thou,  Lib.  l. — The  calm  Mura¬ 
tori  stigmatizes  the  Umiliati  as  “  troppo 
scorretto  e  corrotto  ordine,”  and  Hen¬ 
rion,  who  cannot  certainly  be  regarded 
as  a  prejudiced  authority,  declares  that 
“les  exces  des  Humilies  surpassoient 
ceux  des  laiques  les  plus  debauches.” 
Pius  V.,  in  his  Bull  suppressing  the 
order,  is  equally  emphatic,  and  vouches 
for  the  truth  of  the  miracle  by  which 
the  life  of  St.  Charles  was  preserved. — 


Bull.  Quemadmodum  sollicitus  (Mag. 
Bull.  Rom.  II.  326). 

2  Vu  que  par  toute  l’ltalie  on  le  vit 
reconnoitre  pour  1 ’usage  et  observations 
de  toutes  les  ordonnances,  on  n’en  voit 
une  seule  entretenue  de  celles  qui 
concerne  la  reformation  de  la  vie  et 
mmurs  des  ecclesiastiques  .  .  .  Et  ce 
pent  dire  pour  ce  regard  que  l’eglise 
n’est  en  autre  lieu  de  la  Chretiente  si 
;  dereglee  et  difforme  qu’es  pays  ou  le 
pape  a  commandement  et  puissance 
ahsolu. — Le  Plat,  VII.  259. 


OPPOSITION  TO  THE  COUNCIL  OF  TRENT.  553 


been  no  need  of  further  legislation.  A  convocation  of  the  ecclesi¬ 
astics  of  each  province  to  receive  and  publish  the  decrees  of  Trent 
would  have  been  all-sufficient.  When,  therefore,  we  see  the  endless 
iteration  with  which  the  guilty  clergy  were  threatened  with  the  Tri¬ 
dentine  canons,  and  with  other  new  or  revivified  penalties — as  at  the 
councils  of  Milan  in  1565  and  1582, 1  and  at  those  of  Manfredonia 
in  1567,  of  Ravenna  in  1568,  of  Urbino  in  1569,  of  Florence  in 
1573,  of  Naples  in  1576,  of  Consenza  in  1579,  of  Salerno  in  1596, 
of  S.  Severino  in  1597,  and  of  Melfi  in  1597 2 — we  can  only  con¬ 
clude  that  the  evil  was  irremediable,  in  spite  of  the  well-meant  efforts 
to  suppress  it,  or  to  throw  off  the  responsibility  of  its  existence. 

In  fact,  the  manner  in  which  the  council  of  Trent  was  greeted  by 
the  clergy  may  be  judged  from  its  treatment  in  the  archiepiscopate  of 
Utrecht.  Though  Philip  II.  had  authoritatively  ordered  its  recep¬ 
tion  in  1565,  we  find  the  Duke  of  Alva  in  May,  1568,  issuing  his 
commands  to  the  prelates  of  the  five  churches  of  Utrecht  to  offer  no 
further  opposition  to  it.  Even  so  stern  a  ruler  could  not  obtain 
immediate  obedience,  however,  to  so  obnoxious  a  series  of  regulations, 
and  they  responded  by  pleading  their  ancient  privileges.  This 
availed  them  little,  for  in  June  he  replied  that  his  instructions  were 
positive,  and  he  proceeded  to  enforce  them  by  sending  royal  commis¬ 
sioners  to  the  province,  empowered  to  carry  them  out.  In  July, 
therefore,  the  Archbishop  assembled  his  clergy  and  in  conjunction 
with  the  commissioners  issued  a  series  of  regulations  designed  to 
give  effective  force  to  the  canons  of  the  council.  Visiting  nunneries 
and  haunting  taverns,  joining  in  dances  and  hunting  and  indecent 
songs  were  forbidden.  The  clergy  were  ordered  to  shave  their  beards 
and  to  give  up  their  concubines,  whom  they  were  not  to  retake  or 
to  replace.  Even  yet  they  did  not  yield,  but  while  they  were 
ashamed  to  claim  the  right  to  keep  their  female  companions,  they 
demurred  as  to  the  sacrifice  of  their  beards,  and  the  Archbishop  was 
obliged  to  issue  another  peremptory  command.3 


1  Concil.  Mediolanens.  ann.  1565  P. 
II.  Const,  xiv.  (Harduin.  X.  661)  — 
Concil.  Mediolanens.  ann.  1582  Const, 
xiv.  (Ibid.  p.  1117). 

2  Concil  Sipontin.  ann.  1567  De 
Yit.  et  Honest.  Cleric.  — Concil.  Ra- 
vennat.  ann.  1568  De  Yit.  et  Honest. 
Cleric,  c.  v. — Concil.  Urbinat.  ann. 

1569  De  Yit.  et  Honest.  Cleric,  c.  vi. 
— Concil.  Florent.  ann.  1573  Ruhr. 
xxxvii.  c.  3,  4. — Concil.  Neapol.  ann. 


1576  cap.  xxii. — Concil.  Consentin. 
ann.  1579  Sess.  iv. — Concil.  Salernit. 
ann.  1596  cap.  xvin. — Concil.  S.  Se- 
verin.  ann.  1597  De  Yit.  et  Honest. 
Cleric. — Concil.  Amalfitan.  ann.  1597 
De  Yit.  et  Honest.  Cleric,  c.  v. — (Lab- 
bei  et  Coleti  Supplement.  T.  Y.  pp. 
827-1331). 

3  The  documents  are  in  Le  Plat, 
Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  YII.  199- 
201.  For  the  condition  of  morals  in 


554 


THE  POST  - TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


Throughout  the  whole  extent  of  Central  Europe  the  Tridentine 
canons  met  with  a  like  slackness  of  obedience.  Even  the  question 
of  sacerdotal  marriage,  which  had  been  raised  by  the  council  to  the 
dignity  of  a  point  of  faith,  was  stubbornly  contested,  and  was  not 
yielded  until  after  a  protracted  struggle. 

In  1569  we  find  the  synod  of  the  extensive  and  important  province 
of  Salzburg  virtually  dividing  its  clergy  into  two  classes — those  who 
haunt  the  taverns  under  pretext  of  getting  their  meals,  but  really 
for  the  purpose  of  indulging  in  drunken  riots  with  their  parishioners, 
and  those  who  keep  houses,  with  concubines  under  the  guise  of  female 
servants,  whom  they  secretly  marry,  and  who  are  openly  known  by 
their  husbands’  names.  To  meet  this  condition  of  affairs,  the  synod 
devised  an  elaborate  system  by  which  the  richer  clergy  were  directed 
to  keep  as  domestics  respectable  middle-aged  married  women  with 
their  husbands,  while  the  poorer  ecclesiastics  were  to  club  together 
for  the  same  purpose.1  This  expedient  proved  as  fruitless  as  its  pre¬ 
decessors,  for  in  1572  Gregory  XIII.  complained  to  the  archbishop 
that  in  many  places  priests  who  were  known  to  be  married  were  per¬ 
mitted  by  their  bishops  to  celebrate  Mass  and  to  handle  the  sacred 
elements.2  In  spite  of  all  this  the  evil  continued  unabated,  and  in 
1616  the  Archbishop  of  Salzburg,  in  his  instructions  for  a  general 
visitation,  ordered  that  all  priests  should  remove  their  concubines  to 
a  distance  of  at  least  six  miles,  and  should  not  allow  their  illegiti¬ 
mate  children  to  live  openly  with  them,  except  under  special  license 
from  him.3 

In  1565,  Anthony,  Archbishop  of  Prague,  promulgated  the  council 
of  Trent  in  his  provincial  synod.  He  was  a  man  of  more  than  ordi¬ 
nary  vigor ;  he  had  been  the  imperial  orator  at  Trent,  understood 
fully  the  views  of  the  council,  and  was  not  likely  to  underrate  either 
their  importance  or  their  authority.  Armed  with  the  Tridentine 
canons,  he  set  actively  to  work  and  instituted  a  very  thorough  system 
of  inquisitorial  visitations,  which  ought  to  have  succeeded  if  success 
were  possible.  Yet,  after  the  lapse  of  thirteen  years,  in  a  special 
mandate  issued  by  him  in  1578,  he  deplores  the  obstinate  blindness 


the  church  of  Holland,  see  Synod. 
Harlem,  ann.  1564;  Synod.  Ultraject. 
ann.  1564;  Concil.  Ultraject.  ann.  1565 
(Hartzheim  VII.  5,  22,  137).  It  was 
to  the  publication  of  the  council  of 
Trent  that  William  of  Orange  attributed 
the  inevitable  revolution  which  followed 
(Stradaj  de  Bell.  Belgic.  Lib.  iv.). 


1  Synod.  Salisburg.  ann.  1569  Const, 
xxvn.  cap.  xviii.,  xix.,  xx.,  xxi.,  xxii. 
(Hartzheim  VII.  306-8). 

2  Concil.  Salisburg.  XLVII.  (Dal- 
ham,  Cone.  Salisb.  p.  583). 

5  Yisitat.  Salisburg.  ann.  1616  Tit. 
I.  cap.  vi.  (Hartzheim  IX.  266). 


PERSISTENCE  OF  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


555 


of  many  of  his  clergy,  who  still  believed,  with  the  heretics,  that 
marriage  was  not  incompatible  with  priesthood,  while  those  who  did 
not  marry  were  gnilty  of  the  less  dangerous  error  of  maintaining 
concubines  and  children  on  the  revenues  of  their  benefices.1 

The  same  wilful  ignorance  apparently  existed  in  the  diocese  of 
Wurzburg,  for  Bishop  Julius,  in  1584,  found  it  necessary,  in  his 
episcopal  statutes,  to  discountenance  clerical  matrimony  and  to  prove 
its  nullity  by  laboriously  quoting  innumerable  canons  and  decretals ; 
and  he  even  condescended  to  remind  his  priesthood  that  in  taking 
orders  they  had  willingly  and  knowingly  entered  into  an  engagement 
of  continence,  by  the  consequences  of  which  they  must  be  prepared 
to  abide.2 

A  provincial  synod  of  Gnesen,  of  which  the  date  is  uncertain,  but 
which  was  probably  held  in  1577,  deplored  the  insane  audacity  dis¬ 
played  by  ecclesiastics  in  marrying,  and  threatened  them  with  the 
Tridentine  anathema.3  This  warning  appears  to  have  been  com¬ 
pletely  disregarded,  for  the  Bishop  of  Breslau,  a  suffragan  of  the 
metropolis  of  Gnesen,  in  opening  his  diocesan  synod  in  1580,  still 
complained  that  many  of  his  clergy  were  guilty  of  this  perversity, 
and  he  was  at  some  pains  to  disavow  any  complicity  with  it,  or  any 
connivance  at  the  licentiousness  which  was  prevalent  among  the  un¬ 
married.4  In  1591  the  synod  of  Olmutz  asserted  that  many  clerks 
in  holy  orders  contracted  pretended  marriages,  and  were  not  ashamed 
of  the  families  growing  up  publicly  around  them,  while  others  indulged 
in  scandalous  concubinage  with  women,  whom  they  styled  house¬ 
keepers  or  cooks.  In  endeavoring  to  put  an  end  to  this  state  of 
affairs,  the  synod  manifested  its  estimation  of  the  morals  of  the 
priesthood  by  renewing  the  hideous  suggestions  which  we  have  seen 
in  the  tenth  and  twelfth  centuries,  for  pastors  were  allowed  to  have 
near  them  the  female  relatives  authorized  by  the  Nicene  canons,  but, 


1  Decret.  Reformat.  Pragens.  (Hartz- 

heim  VII.  53). 

3  Statut.  Rural.  Julii  "Wirceburg.  P. 
in.  c.  iv.  (Gropp  Script.  Rer.  AYirce- 
burg.  I.  471-4).  It  is  somewhat  re¬ 
markable  that  Bishop  Julius  attributes 
the  prohibition  of  marriage  to  the 
Council  of  Nicoea.  After  describing 

O  1 

the  custom  of  the  Greek  church,  he 
proceeds,  “  Permissio  vero  et  consue- 
tudo  ilia  duravit  usque  ad  Nicaenum 
concilium,  in  quo  generali  decreto 
abrogata  est,  statutumque  ne  aliquis 


habens  uxorem  consecretur  sacerdos” 
— a  falsification  which  is  equally  singu¬ 
lar,  whether  it  proceeded  from  ignor¬ 
ance  or  fraud,  and  an  admission  that 
celibacy  was  not  of  apostolic  origin 
which  was  rare  in  a  Catholic  prelate  of 
that  period. 

3  Synod.  Gnesnens.  c.  xxxiii.  (Hartz- 
heim  VII.  891). 

4  Synod.  "Wratislav.  ann.  1580 
(Hartzheim  VII.  890). 


55  6 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


in  view  of  the  assaults  of  the  tempter,  were  prudently  advised  not 
to  let  them  reside  in  their  houses.1  The  disregard  of  the  Tridentine 
canon  continued,  and  as  late  as  1628,  at  the  synod  of  Osnabruck, 
the  orator  who  opened  the  proceedings  inveighed  in  the  vilest  terms 
against  the  female  companions  of  the  clergy,  who  not  only  occupied 
the  position  of  wives,  hut  were  even  dignified  with  the  title.2 

Even  in  Spain,  under  Philip  II.,  the  new  ideas  had  penetrated, 
and  priestly  marriages  became  sufficiently  numerous  to  render  it 
necessary  for  the  Inquisition  to  add  to  its  “  Edict  of  Denunciations,” 
which  was  read  during  Lent  in  every  church,  a  command  to  reveal 
to  the  authorities  any  case  of  marriage  on  the  part  of  monks  or  of 
ecclesiastics  in  holy  orders.3 


We  have  seen  above  that  the  highest  authorities  in  the  church  did 
not  hesitate  openly  to  attribute  the  origin  and  success  of  the  Refor¬ 
mation  to  the  scandalous  corruption  of  the  ecclesiastical  body.  The 
council  of  Trent  had  not  resulted  in  removing  the  scandal,  and  clear¬ 
sighted  prelates  were  not  wanting  who  proclaimed  that  the  same 
causes  continued  to  operate  and  to  produce  the  same  effect.  Anthony, 
Archbishop  of  Prague,  in  his  synod  of  1565,  took  occasion  to  declare 
that  the  misfortunes  of  the  church  were  attributable  to  the  dissolute¬ 
ness  of  the  clergy,  and  that  the  extirpation  of  heresy  could  best  be 
effected  by  reforming  the  depraved  morals  and  filthy  lives  of  ecclesi¬ 
astics.4  At  the  council  of  Salzburg,  in  1569,  Christopher  Spandel, 
in  the  closing  address,  asked  the  assembled  prelates  what  title  was 
more  contemptible  or  more  odious  than  that  of  priest  in  consequence 
of  the  license  in  which  the  clergy  as  a  body  indulged.5  The  clergy 
of  France,  assembled  at  Melun  in  July,  1579,  when  addressing  Henry 
III.  with  a  request  for  the  publication  of  the  council  of  Trent,  assured 
him  that  the  heresy  which  afflicted  Christendom  was  caused  by  the 
corruption  of  the  church,  and  that  it  could  only  be  eradicated  by  a 


1  Synod.  Olomucens.  ann.  1591  c. 
xiii.  (Hartzheim  VIII.  352). 

2  Synod.  Osnabrug.  ann.  1628  (Hartz¬ 
heim  IX.  431). — As  usual,  a  distinction 
is  drawn  between  those  who  thus 
formed  permanent,  though  illicit  con¬ 
nections,  and  others  who  indulged  in 
promiscuous  license — “alii  vaga  dis- 
soluti  lascivia,  tanquam  equi  emissarii, 

ad  incontinentissimum  quodque  scortum 

aut  adulteram  adhinniunt  trahuntque 

ingentes  liberorum  spuriorum  greges. 


Ilffic  in  propatulo  sunt;  quae  vero  in 
occulto  hunt  ab  ipsis,  turpe  est  et 
dicere.” 

8  Llorente,  Histoire  Critique  de  l’ln- 
quisition  d’Espagne,  Chap.  xxvm. 
Art.  iii.  No.  7. 

4  Statut.  Dioeces.  Pragens.  ann.  1565 
(Hartzheim  VII.  26). 

6  Svnod.  Salisburg.  ann.  1569  (Hartz¬ 
heim  VII.  407). 


HERESY  PROMOTED  BY  CLERICAL  CORRUPTION.  557 


thorough  reformation.1  Though  the  Inquisition  took  care  that  Spain 
should  not  be  much  troubled  by  heretics,  yet  the  synod  of  Orihuella, 
in  1600,  declared  that  the  concubinage  practised  by  ecclesiastics  was 
the  principal  source  of  popular  animosity  and  complaint  against  them.2 
These  complaints  were  general.  In  1599,  Cuyck,  Bishop  of  Rure- 
monde,  published  a  work  aimed  at  concubinary  priests,  in  which  he 
assured  them  that  they  and  their  predecessors  were  the  cause  of  the 
ruin  and  devastation  of  the  Netherlands  for  the  last  thirty  years,  for 
their  vices  had  led  to  the  contempt  felt  for  the  clergy,  and  thus  to 
the  heresy  which  had  caused  the  civil  wars.  Those  who  kept  their 
vows  he  asserts  to  be  as  rare  as  the  grapes  that  can  be  gleaned  after 
the  vintage  or  the  olives  left  after  gathering  the  crop ;  but  the  only 
remedy  he  can  suggest  is  increased  vigilance  and  severity  on  the  part 
of  the  prelates.3  Evidently,  the  Tridentine  canons  had  thus  far  been 
a  failure.  In  1609,  at  the  synod  of  Constance,  the  Rev.  Dr.  Ham- 
erer,  in  an  official  oration  to  the  assembled  prelates,  deplored  the 
continued  spread  of  heresy,  which  he  boldly  told  them  was  caused 
by  the  perpetually  increasing  immorality  that  pervaded  all  classes 
of  the  priesthood.  The  Reformation  had  begun,  had  derived  its 
strength,  and  was  still  prospering  through  their  weakness,  which 
rendered  them  odious  to  the  people,  and  made  the  Catholic  religion 
a  by-word  and  a  shame.4  In  1610,  the  Bishop  of  Antwerp,  in  a 
synodal  address,  agreed  with  Bishop  Cuyck  in  attributing  the  evils 
which  had  so  grievously  afflicted  the  church  of  Flanders  for  nearly 
half  a  century,  to  the  same  cause,  and,  while  recounting  the  various 
successive  efforts  at  internal  reform  made  since  the  council  of  Trent, 
he  pronounced  each  one  to  have  been  a  failure  in  consequence  of  the 
incurable  obstinacy  of  the  clergy.5  Damhouder,  a  celebrated  juris¬ 
consult  of  Flanders,  whose  unquestioned  piety  and  orthodoxy  gained 
for  him  the  confidence  of  Charles  Y.  and  Philip  II.,  does  not  hesi¬ 
tate  to  speak  of  the  clergy  of  his  time  as  men  who  rarely  lived  up 
to  their  professions,  arid  who  as  a  general  rule  were  scoundrels  dis¬ 
tinguished  for  their  indulgence  in  all  manner  of  evil.6  In  a  similar 


1  Le  Plat,  VII.  238. 

2  Synod.  Oriolan.  ann.  1600  cap. 
xxxviii.  (Aguirre,  VI.  457). 

3  Henr.  Cuyckii  Speculum  Concu- 
hinariorum  Sacerdotum,  Monachorum 
ac  Clericorum  ;  Colonise,  1599. 

4  Synod.  Constant,  ann  1609  (Hartz- 

heim  VIII.  838).  Another  orator, 


Dr.  Mayer,  S.  J.,  though  more  cautious 
in  his  deductions,  was  equally  out¬ 
spoken  in  his  denunciations  of  the 
wickedness  of  the  clergy  (Ibid.  p.  831). 

5  Svnod.  Antverp.  ann.  1610  (Hartz- 
heim  VIII.  979). 

6  Damhouder.  Rerum  Crimin.  Praxis 
cap.  xxxvii.  No.  25  (Antverp.  1601). 


558 


THE  POST  - TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


mood  the  Bishop  of  Bois-le-Duc,  in  opening  his  synod  of  1612,  de¬ 
clared  that  the  scandalous  lives  of  the  ecclesiastics  were  a  source  of 
corruption  to  the  laity  and  a  direct  encouragement  of  heresy.1  So, 
in  1625,  the  synod  of  Osnabruck  gave  as  its  reason  for  endeavoring 
to  enforce  the  Tridentine  canons  that  the  true  religion  was  despised 
on  account  of  the  depraved  morals  of  its  ministers,  whose  crimes 
were  a  sufficient  explanation  of  the  stubbornness  of  the  heretics. 
So  little  concealment  of  their  frailty  was  thought  necessary  that  they 
openly  enriched  their  children  from  the  patrimony  of  the  church, 
and  decked  their  concubines  with  ornaments  and  vestments  taken 
from  the  holy  images,  even  as  we  have  seen  was  the  custom  among 
the  Anglo-Saxons  of  the  tenth  century.2 

The  Thirty  Years’  War  proved  a  more  effectual  bar  to  the  spread 
of  heresy  than  these  fruitless  efforts  to  cure  the  incurable  malady  of 
the  church.  After  the  Peace  of  Westphalia,  there  was  no  further 
need  to  appeal  to  the  dread  of  proselyting  Lutheranism  as  a  stimulus 
to  virtue,  but  still  the  same  process  of  reasoning  appears  in  exhorta¬ 
tions  to  regain  the  forfeited  respect  of  the  community.  Thus,  in 
1652,  the  Bishop  of  Munster  expressed  his  horror  at  the  obstinacy 
with  which,  in  spite  of  fines,  edicts,  and  canons,  his  clergy  persisted 
in  retaining  their  concubines,  and  he  declared  that  the  discordance 
between  the  professions  and  the  practice  of  the  priesthood  rendered 
them  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  the  people  and  destroyed  the  au¬ 
thority  of  religion  itself;3  and  in  1662  the  synod  of  Cologne  deplored 
that  the  notorious  want  of  respect  felt  for  the  ministers  of  Christ  was 
the  direct  result  of  their  own  immorality.4  A  doctrine  even  sprang 
up  to  the  effect  that  it  was  not  requisite  to  force  a  concubinarian  to 
eject  his  companion  if  she  was  useful  to  him  in  his  housekeeping  or  if 
it  would  be  difficult  for  him  to  obtain  another  servant ;  and  this  be¬ 
came  sufficiently  formidable  to  entitle  it  to  a  place  among  the  errors 
of  belief  formally  condemned  by  the  Roman  Inquisition  in  its  decree 
of  March,  1666.5 

In  France  the  influence  of  the  Tridentine  canons  had  been  equally 
unsatisfactory.  At  a  royal  council  held  in  1560,  which  resolved 


1  Synod.  Boscodunens.  II.  ann.  1612 
(Hartzheim  IX.  200). 

2  Synod.  Osnabrug.  ann  1625  cap. 
v.,  x.  Hartzheim  IX.  350.  —  Synod. 
Osnabrug.  ann.  1628  (Ibid.  p.  428). 


3  Synod.  Monasteriens.  ann.  1652 
(Hartzheim  IX.  786-7). 

4  Synod.  Colon,  ann.  1662  P.  III.  Tit. 
I.  cap.  1  §  iii.  (Hartzheim  IX.  1006). 

5  Mag.  Bull.  Roman.  Ed.  Luxemb. 
1742,  T.  VI.  App.  p.  2. 


FRANCE. 


559 


upon  the  assembly  of  the  States  at  Orleans,  Charles  de  Marillac, 
Bishop  of  Vienne,  declared  that  ecclesiastical  discipline  was  almost 
obsolete,  and  that  no  previous  time  had  seen  scandals  so  frequent  or 
the  life  of  the  clergy  so  reprehensible.1  From  the  proceedings  ot 
the  Huguenot  Synod  of  Poitiers,  in  1560,  it  is  evident  that  priests 
not  infrequently  secretly  married  their  concubines,  and,  when  the 
woman  was  a  Calvinist,  her  equivocal  position  became  a  matter  of 
grave  consideration  with  her  church.2  The  only  result  of  the  Col¬ 
loquy  of  Poissy,  in  1561,  was  that  Catherine  de  Medicis  prevailed 
upon  the  bishops  to  present  a  request  to  the  king  asking  him  to  use 
his  influence  with  the  pope  to  concede  the  marriage  of  priests  and 
the  use  of  the  cup  by  the  laity.  Means  were  found,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  prevent  the  former  of  these  demands  from  being  made,  while  the 
latter,  when  presented,  was  peremptorily  refused.3  In  the  existing 
condition  of  affairs,  the  council  of  Trent  could  not  reasonably  be 
expected  to  effect  much,  for,  as  the  orthodox  Claude  d’Espence 
informs  us,  the  French  prelates,  like  the  Germans,  were  in  the  habit 
of  collecting  the  “cullagium”  from  all  their  priests  and  informing 
those  who  did  not  keep  concubines  that  they  might  do  so  if  they 
liked,  but  must  pay  the  license-money,  whether  or  no.4  In  1564, 
the  Cardinal  of  Lorraine,  not  long  after  his  return  from  the  council, 
held  a  provincial  synod  at  Rheims,  where  he  contented  himself  with 
declaring  that  the  ancient  canons  enjoining  chastity  should  be  en¬ 
forced.5  The  next  year,  1565,  a  synod  held  at  Cambray  reduced  the 
penalties  to  a  minimum,  and  afforded  every  opportunity  for  purchasing 
immunity,  by  enacting  that  those  who  consorted  with  loose  women, 
and  who  remained  obdurate  to  warnings  and  reprehension,  should  be 
punished  at  the  pleasure  of  the  officials.6  In  two  years  more  the 
same  council  was  fain  to  ask  the  aid  of  the  secular  arm  to  remove 
the  concubines  of  its  clergy7 — a  course  again  suggested  as  late  as 


1  Pierre  de  la  Place,  Estat.  de  Relig. 
etc.  Liv.  hi. 

2  Quick,  Synod.  Gall.  Reform.  I.  18* 

3  Fleury,  Hist.  Eccles.  Liv.  CL  VII* 
Nos.  37-42. 

4  Chavard,  Le  Celibat  des  Pretres.  p. 

401. 

5  Concil.  Remens.  ann.  1564,  Stat. 
xvn.  (Harduin.  X.  477). 

6  Concil.  Camerac.  ann.  1565,  Rubr. 


viii.  c.  3. — At  this  council,  which  was 
held  in  June,  1565,  the  council  of 
Trent  was  formally  adopted.  As  form¬ 
ing  part  of  Flandre  Frangaise ,  Cam¬ 
bray  may  properly  be  considered  as 
French,  though  Francis  I.,  by  the 
treaty  of  Madrid  in  1526,  had  been 
compelled  to  surrender  his  sovereignty, 
and  till  a  hundred  years  later  it  con¬ 
tinued  under  Spanish  dominion. 

7  Concil.  Camerac.  ann.  1567  c.  iii. 
(Hartzheim  VII.  216). 


560 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


1631. 1  The  terms  in  tvhich  Claude,  Bishop  of  Evreux,  at  his  synod 
of  1576,  announced  his  intention  of  taking  steps  to  eject  those  who 
for  the  future  should  persist  in  their  immorality  show  not  only  that 
such  measures  were  even  yet  an  innovation,  but  also  indicate  little 
probability  of  their  being  successful.2  The  council  of  Rheims,  in 
1583,  while  proclaiming  that  the  Tridentine  canons  shall  be  enforced 
on  all  concubinary  priests,  manifests  a  reasonable  doubt  as  to  the 
amount  of  respect  which  they  will  receive  in  threatening  that  those 
who  are  contumacious  shall  be  subdued  by  the  secular  arm.3  The 
council  of  Tours,  in  the  same  year,  deplores  that  the  whole  ecclesi¬ 
astical  body  is  regarded  with  aversion  by  the  good  and  pious  on 
account  of  the  scandals  perpetrated  by  a  portion  of  them.  To  cure 
this  evil,  the  residence  of  suspected  women,  even  when  connected  by 
blood,  is  forbidden,  as  well  as  of  the  children  acknowledged  to  be 
sprung  from  such  unions,  and  various  penalties  are  denounced  against 
offenders.4  The  council  of  Avignon,  in  1594,  declares  that  the  nu¬ 
merous  decrees  relative  to  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  clergy  are 
either  forgotten  or  neglected,  and  then  proceeds  to  forbid  the  resi¬ 
dence  of  suspected  women.5  That  of  Bordeaux,  in  1624,  earnestly 
warns  the  clergy  of  the  province  not  to  allow  their  sisters  and  nieces 
to  live  in  their  houses,  and  especially  not  to  sleep  in  the  same  room 
with  them ; 6  and  various  other  synods  held  during  the  period  repeated 
the  well-known  regulations  on  the  subject,  which  are  only  of  interest 
as  showing  how  little  they  were  respected.7 

No  one,  in  fact,  wTho  is  familiar  with  the  popular  literature  of 
Trance  during  that  period  can  avoid  the  conviction  that  the  ecclesi¬ 
astical  body  was  hopelessly  infected  with  the  corruption  which,  ema¬ 
nating  from  the  foulest  court  in  Christendom,  spread  its  contagion 

throughout  the  land.  If  Rabelais  and  Bonaventure  des  Periers 
© 

reflect  the  depravity  w7hich  was  universal  under  Francis  I.,  Bran- 


1  Synod.  Camerac.  ann.  1631  Tit. 
xvin.  c.  xiv.  (Ibid.  IX.  562). 

2  Claudii  Episc.  Ebroicens.  Statut. 
cap.  hi.  g  1  (Migne’s  Patrol.  Tom.  147 
pp.  244-5.) 

3  Concil.  Remens.  ann.  1583  cap. 
xviii.  $  5  (Harduin.  X.  1293). 

4  Concil.  Turon.  ann.  1583  cap.  xv. 
(Ibid.  p.  1481). 

5  Concil.  Avenionens.  ann.  1594  can. 

xxxii.  (Ibid.  p.  1854). 


6  Concil.  Burdigalens.  ann.  1624  cap. 
xiii.  $  2.  (Harduin.  XI.  96). 

7  S}Tnod.  Tornacens.  ann.  1574  Tit. 
xii.  c.  5,  6,  7  (Hartzheim  VII.  780). 
— Synod.  Audomarens.  ann.  1583  Tit. 
xvi.  c.  2  (Ibid.  VII.  947).  Concil. 
Burdigalens.  ann.  1583  can.  xxi.  (Har¬ 
duin.  X.  1360). —  Concil.  Bituricens. 
ann.  1584  Tit.  xlii.  can.  1-4  (Ibid.  X. 
1503-4). — Concil.  Aquens.  ann.  1585 
cap.  de  Vit.  et  Honestate  Cleric.  (Ibid. 
X.  1547). — Concil.  Narbonnens.  ann. 
1609  cap.  xli.  (Ibid.  XI.  96). 


EFFORTS  AT  REFORM. 


561 


tome,  Beroalde  de  Yerville  and  Noel  du  Fail  continue  the  record  of 
infamy  under  Catherine  de  Medicis  and  her  children.1  The  gene¬ 
alogy  of  sin  is  carried  on  by  Tallemant  des  Beaux,  Bussy-Rabutin, 
and  the  crowd  of  memoir  writers  wffio  flourished  in  the  Augustan  age 
of  French  literature.  Into  these  common  sewers  of  iniquity  it  is 
not  worth  our  while  to  penetrate ;  but,  when  the  high  places  in  the 
hierarchy  were  filled  with  men  to  whom  the  very  name  of  virtue  was 
a  jest,  we  need  not  hesitate  to  conclude  that  the  humbler  members 
of  the  church  were  equally  regardless  of  their  obligations  to  God 
and  man. 


It  is  evident  from  all  this  that  the  standard  of  ecclesiastical  morals 
had  not  been  raised  by  the  efforts  of  the  Tridentine  fathers,  and  yet 
a  study  of  the  records  of  church  discipline  shows  that  with  the 
increasing  decency  and  refinement  of  society  during  the  seventeenth 
and  eighteenth  centuries  the  open  and  cynical  manifestations  of 
license  among  the  clergy  became  gradually  rarer.  It  may  well  be 
doubted,  nevertheless,  whether  their  lives  were  in  reality  much  purer. 
A  few  spasmodic  efforts  were  made  to  enforce  the  Nicene  canon,  pro¬ 
hibiting  the  residence  of  women,  but  they  were  utterly  fruitless,  and 
were  so  recognized  by  all  parties ;  and  the  energies  of  the  arch-priests 
and  bishops  were  directed  to  regulating  the  character  of  the  hand¬ 
maidens,  who  were  admitted  to  be  a  necessary  evil.  The  devices 
employed  for  this  purpose  were  varied,  and  repeated  with  a  frequency 
which  shows  their  insufficiency;  and  it  would  be  scarce  worth  our 
wffiile  to  do  more  than  indicate  some  sources  of  reference  for  the 
curious  student  who  may  wish  to  follow  up  the  reiteration  which  we 
have  traced  already  through  so  many  successive  centuries.2  Among 


1  Du  Fail,  whose  high  official  posi¬ 
tion  in  the  Parlement  of  Rennes  pre¬ 
cludes  the  supposition  of  any  tendency 
to  Calvinism,  devotes  one  of  his  dis¬ 
courses  (Contes  et  Discours  d’Eutrapel 
No.  xx.)  to  the  evils  entailed  bv  celi- 
hacy  on  the  church  and  on  society, 
quoting  the  exclamation  of  Cardinal 
Contarini  to  Yelly  the  French  ambas¬ 
sador,  “O  quae  mala  attulit  in  ecclesia 
ccelibatus  file!”  It  is  true  that  such 
stories  as  “Frater  Fecisti  ”  are  not 
historical  documents,  yet  they  have 
their  value  as  indicating  the  drift  of 
public  feeling  and  the  convictions  forced 
upon  the  minds  of  the  people  by  the 
irregularities  of  the  clerical  profession. 
The  same  lesson  is  taught  by  Boccaccio, 


Piers  Ploughman,  Chaucer,  Poggio,  the 
Cent  Nouvelles  Nouvelles,  and  all  the 
other  records  of  the  interior  life  of  the 
14th,  15th,  and  16th  centuries. 

2  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  vii.  136. — Collect.  Synod.  Mech¬ 
lin.  Tom.  I.  pp.  39,  57. — Synod.  Mech¬ 
lin.  ann.  1570  Tit.  xiv.  (Ibid.  I.  118). — 
Synod.  Lovaniens.  ann.  1574  (Ibid.  I. 
191).  —  Synod.  Provin.  Mechlin,  ann. 
1607  Tit.  xviii.  c.  viii.  (Ibid.  I.  395). — 
Synod.  Dioeces.  Mechlin,  ann.  1607  Tit. 
xvn.  c.  vi.  (Ibid.  II.  237). — Congregat. 
Archipresbyt.  ann.  1613  (Ibid.  II. 
271).  —  Tertia  Congregat.  Episc.  ann. 
1624  (Ibid.  I.  466).— Ibid.  I.  514. 
Synod.  Augustan,  ann.  1567  P.  in. 

36 


562 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


them,  however,  one  new  feature  shows  itself,  which  indicates  the 
growing  respect  paid  to  the  appearance  of  decency — complaints  that 
concubines  are  kept  under  the  guise  of  sisters  and  nieces. 

That  the  monastic  orders  had  profited  more  than  the  secular  clergy 
by  the  Tridentine  reformation  may  well  be  doubted.  Laurent  de  Pey- 
rinnis,  one  of  the  heads  of  the  Order  of  Minims,  in  1668,  issued  a 
code  of  regulations  in  which  he  showed  that  scandal  was  more 
dreaded  than  sin  when  he  promulgated  an  exemption  from  excom¬ 
munication  in  favor  of  those  brethren  who,  when  about  to  yield  to 
the  temptations  of  the  flesh,  or  to  commit  theft,  prudently  laid  aside 
the  monastic  habit.1  Another  celebrated  jurist  of  the  same  Order 
bears  testimony  to  the  demoralization  of  his  brethren  when  he  de¬ 
clares  that  if  the  severe  punishments  provided  for  unchastity  by  the 
statutes  were  enforced  they  would  result  in  the  destruction  of  all  the 
religious  congregations.2 


In  the  New  World  the  licentiousness  of  the  priesthood,  as  might 
be  expected,  began  to  vex  the  infant  church  as  soon  as  it  was  organ¬ 
ized  among  the  heathen.  The  earliest  synods  and  councils  which 


c.  ii.  (Hartzheim  VII.  182). — Synod. 
Constant,  ann.  1567  P.  n.  Tit.  i.  c.  9 
(Ibid.  VII.  541). — Synod.  Euremond. 
ann.  1570  (Ibid.  VII.  653). — Synod. 
Boscodunens.  ann.  1571  Tit.  xiv.  c. 
ii.  (Ibid.  VII.  723). — Synod.  War- 
miens.  ann.  1577  c.  i.  (Ibid.  VII.  871). 
— Synod.  Mettens.  ann.  1604  c.  xlviii., 
liii.,  lxii.  (Ibid.  X.  768-70).— Synod. 
Brixiens.  ann.  1603  De  discip.  cler. 
c.  xviii.  (Ibid.  VIII.  576). —  Synod. 
Namurcens.  ann.  1604  Tit.  vm.  c.  vi. 
(Ibid.  VIII.  623). — Synod.  Constant, 
ann.  1609  P.  n.  Tit.  xvii.  c.  7  (Ibid. 
VIII.  906). — Synod.  Mettens.  ann. 
1610  Tit.  xi.  c.  xi.  (Ibid.  VIII.  962). — 
Synod.  Antverp.  ann.  1610  Tit.  xvii. 
c.  vi.  (Ibid.  VIII.  1003). —  Statut. 
Visitat.  Salisburgens.  ann.  1616  Tit. 
I.  c.  vi.  (Ibid.  IX.  266). — Synod. 
Iprens.  ann.  1629  c.  xx.  (Ibid.  IX. 
490). — Synod.  Namurcens.  ann.  1639 
Tit.  xix.  c.  ix.,  x.  (Ibid.  IX.  592-3). — 
Synod.  Audomar.  ann.  1640  Tit.  xiv. 
c.  vii.  (Ibid.  X.  802). — Synod.  Colon, 
ann.  1651  P.  n.  c.  ii.  $  1  (Ibid.  IX. 
742). — Synod.  Hildeshcim.  ann.  1652 
(Ibid.  IX.  805-6). — Synod.  Colon, 
ann.  1662  P.  ill.  Tit.  ii.  c.  1,  2,  3 
(Ibid.  IX.  1008-11). — Statut.  Synod. 
Trevirens.  ann.  1678  c.  xi.,  xii.,  xiii., 


xiv.  (Ibid.  X.  60). — Statut.  Synod. 
Argentinens.  ann.  1687  De  clericis 
addit.  I.  (Ibid.  X.  180). — Synod. 
Brugens.  ann.  1693  Tit  v.  g  2  (Ibid. 
X.  202). — Cod.  Canon.  Mettens.  ann. 
1699  Tit.  x.  c.  xviii.  (Ibid.  X.  245). — 
Synod.  Bisuntin.  ann.  1707  Tit.  n.  c. 
xxv.  (Ibid.  X.  291). — Synod.  Cul- 
mens.  et  Pomesan.  ann.  1745  c.  ix. 
(Ibid.  X.  517). 

Concil.  Toletan.  ann.  1565  Act.  n. 
cap.  xxii. ;  Act.  in.  cap.  xix.,  xxv. 
(Aguirre  V.  396,  405-6).  —  Concil. 

Valentin,  ann.  1565  Tit.  n.  cap.  xviii., 
xix.  (Ib.  425). — Concil.  Toletan.  ann. 
1582  Act.  III.  Decret.  xxxv.  (Ib.  VI. 
12). — Concil.  Tarraconens.  ann.  1591 
Lib.  i.  Tit.  viii. ;  Lib.  in.  Tit.  ii. 
Ib.  256,  271-3). — Synod.  Oriolan.  ann. 
600  cap  xxxiii.  (Ib.  456). 

1  Ratio  est  quia  tunc  non  dimittit 
habitum  ut  periculose  vagetur,  sed  ut 
coinmodius  fornicetur,  vel  liberius 
furetur. — Apud  C.  Cliabot,  Encyclo¬ 
pedic  Monastique  p.  24  (Paris,  1827). 

2  Spatharius,  Aurea  Methodus  cor- 
rigendi  regulares,  1625,  p.  57 — “  atque 
mea  sententia,  in  totalem  ordinis  rui- 
nam  et  destructionem  singularum  relig- 
ionum  ”  (Apud  Chabot.  op.  cit.  p.  95). 


THE  SPANISH  COLONIES. 


563 


were  held  contain  the  customary  denunciations  of  concubinage  and 
prohibitions  for  ecclesiastics  to  keep  their  children  in  their  houses, 
to  celebrate  their  baptisms  and  nuptials,  and  to  be  assisted  by  them 
in  the  ministry  of  the  altar.  Many,  as  we  are  informed  by  the  first 
council  of  Mexico,  held  in  1555,  brought  with  them  from  Spain  their 
concubines  under  the  guise  of  relatives.1  For  the  most  part,  how¬ 
ever,  they  formed  connections  with  the  natives. 

In  fact,  the  institution  of  slavery  and  the  subject  populations 
among  whom  its  ministers  were  scattered  gave  rise  to  fresh  problems, 
which  the  church  sought  perseveringly,  but  vainly,  to  solve.  Thus, 
in  New  Grenada,  before  the  conquest  was  fairly  achieved,  Bishop 
Barrios,  of  Santafe,  held  his  first  synod,  in  1556,  and  there,  after 
premising  that  the  fruits  of  religion  among  the  Indians  depended 
upon  the  good  example  of  their  pastors,  he  proceeded  to  prohibit  any 
priest  stationed  in  an  Indian  town  from  having  any  Indian  woman 
residing  in  his  house ;  his  food  was  to  be  cooked  by  men,  or,  if  this 
was  impossible,  his  female  servant  must  be  a  married  woman,  residing 
with  her  husband  under  another  roof2 — a  provision  repeated  by  the 
synod  of  Lima  in  1585.3  A  curious  experiment  in  dealing  with  the 
troubles  arising  from  slavery  is  seen  in  the  Mexican  canons,  which 
directed  that  if  an  ecclesiastic  had  children  by  his  slave,  the  owner¬ 
ship  of  the  woman  was  to  be  transferred  to  the  church  and  the  chil¬ 
dren  were  to  be  set  free.  It  will  be  remembered  (p.  178)  that  in 
1022  the  church  insisted  upon  the  continued  servitude  of  clerical 
bastards  whose  mothers  were  serfs  of  the  church;  and  the  contrast 
between  this  and  the  regulation  which  proclaimed  the  freedom  of  the 
children  as  a  punishment  inflicted  upon  the  father  is  perhaps  the 
sorriest  exhibit  that  could  be  made  of  the  character  of  those  who  were 
engaged  in  spreading  the  teachings  of  Christ  among  the  heathen.4 

While  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  much  heroic  self-devotion  was 
shown  in  the  efforts  made  to  convert  the  new  subjects  of  Spain,  it  is 
equally  unquestionable  that  a  majority  of  the  ecclesiastics  who  sought 


1  Concil.  Mexican.  I.  ann.  1555  cap. 
lvii. — The  first  and  second  Mexican 
Councils  are  not  contained  in  Aguirre’s 
collection,  but  were  printed,  together 
with  the  third,  by  Archbishop  Loren- 
zana,  in  two  folio  volumes,  Mexico, 
1769.  The  Third  Council  has  also  been 
reprinted  in  Mexico,  in  1858,  as  a 
manual  of  existing  local  ecclesiastical 
law. 


2  Constituciones  Sinodales  de  Santafe, 
1556  cap.  iv.  (Groot,  Hist.  Eccles.  y 
Civil  del  Nuevo  Keino  de  Granada,  T. 
I.  Append,  ii.  p.  497). 

3  Synod  Dioec.  Limens.  III.  ann. 
1585  cap.  xi.,  lxvii.  (Aguirre,  VI.  193, 
198). 

4  Concil.  Mexican.  I.  ann.  1555  cap. 
li. — Concil.  Mexican.  III.  ann.  1585 
Lib.  v.  Tit.  x.  \  8. 


564 


THE  POST-TRIDENTIHE  CHURCH. 


the  colonies  were  men  of  the  worst  description.  The  councils  held 
in  the  several  provinces  deplore  the  evil  example  which  they  set  to 
their  newly  converted  flocks,  and  the  regulations  which  were  issued 
time  and  again  against  their  excesses  show  the  impossibility  of  keep¬ 
ing  them  under  control.  In  Peru,  for  instance,  when  in  1581  St. 
Toribio  commenced  the  quarter  of  a  century  of  labor  as  Archbishop 
which  worthily  won  for  him  the  canonization  accorded  by  Benedict 
XIII.  in  1726,  two  councils  had  already  been  held  in  Lima,  one  in 
1552  and  the  other  in  1567,  which  had  essayed  a  reformation  of 
morals.  He,  in  turn,  lost  no  time  in  summoning  a  provincial 
council,  which  assembled  in  1583,  the  decrees  of  which,  in  their 
denunciation  of  all  manner  of  vices,  show  how  ineffectual  the  previ¬ 
ous  efforts  had  been.  The  clergy  were  not  disposed  to  submit  tamely 
to  the  new  restraints  which  Toribio  sought  to  impose,  and,  while  the 
active  resistance  which  some  of  them  raised  was  subdued,  the  under¬ 
hand  management  of  others  was  so  far  successful  that  the  royal 
assent  to  the  proceedings  of  the  council  was  delayed  till  1591. 1 
Notwithstanding  the  activity  of  Toribio,  who,  between  1583  and 
1604,  held  three  provincial  councils  and  ten  diocesan  synods,  wrho 
three  times  personally  visited  every  portion  of  his  vast  archbishopric, 
and  who  repeatedly  ordered  his  vicars  to  send  secret  reports  of  con- 
cubinary  and  dissolute  priests,  he  was  obliged,  in  the  provincial 
council  of  1601,  to  content  himself  writh  renewing  the  regulations 
of  1583,  sorrowffully  observing  that  they  had  received  scant  obedi¬ 
ence,  and  that  consequently  the  corruption  and  abuses  prevalent 
among  the  clergy  deprived  them  of  usefulness  among  their  Indian 
parishioners.2  We  can  thus  readily  understand  the  grief  with  which 
the  honest  Fray  Geronimo  de  Mendieta,  a  contemporary,  after  de¬ 
picting  the  eager  docility  with  which  the  natives  at  first  welcomed 
Christianity,  contrasts  it  with  the  hatred  which  sprang  up  for  the 
very  name  of  Christian  when  they  realized  the  hopeless  wretched¬ 
ness  of  their  position  under  their  new  taskmasters;  and  the  Fray 
does  not  conceal  the  fact  that  this  was  partly  owing  to  the  character 
of  some  of  the  clergy,  while  the  better  ones  were  disheartened  and 
discharged  their  trusts  mechanically,  without  expectation  of  accomp- 


1  Aguirre,  YI.  51,  55. — The  canons 
of  the  council  directed  against  concu¬ 
binage  &c.  are  Act.  ill.  c.  18,  19,  20, 
23,  24  (Ibid.  pp.  40-41). 


2  Synod.  Dicec.  Limens.  III.  ann. 
1585  cap.  xxxvi. — Synod.  VIII.  ann. 
1594  cap.  xxxvi. — Concil.  Provin. 
Limens.  III.  ann.  1601  Act.  ii.  Decret. 
iv.  (Aguirre,  VI.  197-8,  436,  479). 


THE  SPANISH  COLONIES. 


565 


listing  good.1  This  condition  of  morals  did  not  improve  with  time. 
In  his  official  report  of  1736,  the  Marques  del  Castel-Fuerte,  Vice¬ 
roy  of  Peru,  remarks  that  the  greater  portion  of  those  of  Spanish 
blood  born  in  the  colonies  embraced  an  ecclesiastical  life,  as  offering 
an  easier  and  more  assured  career  than  any  other.  Surrounded  by 
their  Indian  subjects,  the  pastors  lived  in  luxury  and  license,  which 
their  superiors  did  little  or  nothing  to  check.  In  1728  the  civil 
power  was  ordered  to  make  an  investigation  into  the  morals  of  the 
priesthood,  and  especially  to  designate  those  whose  concubinage  was 
open  and  notorious — an  invasion  of  the  sacred  immunities  of  the 
church  which  provoked  a  storm  against  the  secular  authorities, 
although  only  an  examination  was  proposed,  and  there  was  no 
attempt  to  be  made  of  conviction  or  punishment.2 

That  the  monastic  establishments  shared  in  the  general  dissolute¬ 
ness  we  may  fairly  conclude  when  we  see  the  precautions  which 
St.  Toribio  found  necessary  to  preserve  the  purity  of  the  spouses  of 
Christ.  Thus  one  regulation  provides  that  no  ecclesiastic  shall  visit 
a  nun  without  a  written  permission,  to  be  granted  only  by  the  Arch¬ 
bishop  himself,  or  his  Provisor ;  and  so  little  confidence  did  he  feel 
in  the  guardians  whom  he  himself  appointed,  that  he  directs  that  the 
official  visitors  who  inspected  the  nunneries  should  not  enter  them 
without  some  special  and  urgent  reason.3 

A  curious  rule  adopted  by  the  first  council  of  Mexico  in  1555 
shows  how  much  more  scandal  was  dreaded  than  sin.  In  order,  as 
it  says,  to  avert  danger  and  infamy  from  the  clerical  order  and  from 
married  women,  it  prohibits  the  Fiscal,  or  prosecuting  officer,  from 
taking  cognizance  of  cases  of  adultery  committed  by  ecclesiastics, 
unless  the  husband  be  a  consenting  party,  or  the  adulterer  makes 
public  boast  of  it,  or  the  fact  is  so  notorious  that  it  cannot  be  passed 
over  in  silence ;  and  even  when  action  thus  is  not  to  be  avoided, 
in  no  case  is  the  name  of  the  woman  to  be  mentioned  in  the  pro¬ 
ceedings.  The  Provisors,  however,  are  not  forbidden  to  take  notice 
of  such  crimes,  but  are  allowed  to  settle  them,  if  they  can,  with  all 
due  discretion.4  As  might  be  expected  these  regulations,  by  giving 
practical  immunity,  led  to  an  increase  in  crime,  and  the  third  council 
of  Mexico  in  1585  tells  us  that  many  of  the  clergy  indulged  in  it, 


1  Mendieta,  Historia  Eccles.  Indiana 
Lib.  iv.  cap.  xlvi.  (Mexico,  1870). 

2  Memorias  de  los  Vireyes  del  Peru 

Lima,  1859,  T.  III.  pp.  63-70. 


3  Synod.  Dioec.  Limens.  III.  ann. 
1585  cap.  xli. — Y.  ann.  1588  cap.  ix. 
(Aguirre  YI.  198,  216). 

4  Concil.  Mexican.  I.  ann.  1555  cap. 
lxxxi. 


566 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


in  preference  to  ordinary  concubinage,  in  the  confidence  that  they 
would  not  be  prosecuted ;  but  the  amended  rule  adopted  by  the  Council 
to  meet  this  trouble  differs  so  little  from  its  predecessors,  that  we  may 
reasonably  doubt  whether  it  was  followed  by  any  diminution  in  the 
evil.1  And  this,  judging  from  Rivera’s  notes  to  his  edition  of  1859, 
is  the  existing  state  of  ecclesiastical  law  in  Mexico,2  although  the 
Tridentine  canon  specially  orders  the  Episcopal  Ordinaries  to  pro¬ 
ceed  ex  officio  in  all  such  cases,  even  of  laymen.3 


The  church  of  the  post-Tridentine  period  began  to  find  a  darker 
and  more  dangerous  sin  attract  closer  attention  than  of  old,  and  call 
for  more  serious  efforts  to  prevent  its  offending  the  awakened  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  faithful.  The  power  of  the  confessional,  one  of  the 
most  effective  instrumentalities  invented  by  the  ingenuity  of  man  for 
enslaving  the  human  mind,  was  peculiarly  liable  to  abuse  in  sexual 
relations.  ]  No  one  can  be  familiar  with  the  hideous  suggestiveness 
of  the  penitentials  without  recognizing  how  fearfully  frequent  must 
be  the  temptations  arising  between  confessor  and  penitent,  while  their 
respective  relations  render  seduction  comparatively  easy,  and  un¬ 
speakably  atrocious.4  To  deprive  such  relations  of  danger  requires 
the  confessor  to  be  gifted  with  rare  purity  and  holiness,  and  when 
these  functions  were  confided  to  men  such  as  those  who  composed  the 
sacerdotal  body,  as  we  have  seen  it  throughout  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
result  was  inevitable. 

The  scandals  of  the  confessional  were  no  new  source  of  tribulation 
to  the  church  and  the  people.  No  sooner  had  the  early  custom  of 
public  and  lay  confession  tended  to  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  priest¬ 
hood  than  it  was  found  necessary  to  call  attention  to  the  dangers 
thence  arising.  The  first  council  of  Toledo,  in  398,  forbids  any 
familiarity  between  the  virgins  dedicated  to  God  and  their  con¬ 
fessors.5  About  the  year  500,  Symmachus  calls  attention  to  the 


1  Concil.  Mexican.  III.  ann.  1585 
Lib.  v.  Tit.  x.  \  7. 

2  Notes  57  and  229,  pp.  452,  549. 

3  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  XXIV.  De 
Reform.  Matrim.  c.  viii. — It  requires 
some  artful  special  pleading  on  the  part 
of  Rivera  and  of  the  authorities  on 
whom  he  relies  to  reconcile  this  Mexican 
laxity  with  the  instructions  of  the  coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent. 

4  For  the  brutal  details  of  the  ques¬ 


tions  which  the  confessor  was  required 
to  ask  of  his  penitents,  female  as  well 
as  male,  see  Burchardi  Decretorum  Lib. 
xix.  c.  v.  I  dare  not  give  even  a  spec¬ 
imen. 

5  Concil.  I.  Toletan.  ann.  398  can. 
vi.  For  the  custom  of  the  early  church 
in  the  matter  of  the  confession  of  sins, 
see  Socrates,  H.  E.  v.  xix.,  and  Sozo- 
men,  II.  E.  vn.  xvi. — In  the  ninth 
century  it  was  still  an  open  question 
whether  sacerdotal  confession  was  nec- 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


567 


spiritual  affinity  contracted  between  the  confessor  and  his  penitent, 
rendering  the  latter  his  daughter ;  he  alludes  to  Silvester  as  having 
denounced  guilty  relations  between  them,  and  proceeds  to  decree  not 
only  deposition  in  such  cases,  but  life-long  penitence.1  As  sacer¬ 
dotal  confession  gradually  became  customary,  a  decretal  was  forged — 
whether  to  give  additional  authority  to  the  practice,  or  to  impress 
upon  the  minds  of  confessors  the  necessity  of  prudence — by  which 
the  name  of  Celestin  I.  was  used  for  a  regulation  confiscating  all  the 
possessions  of  the  female  delinquent  and  confining  her  in  a  monastery 
for  life,  while  the  seducer  was  warned  that  such  sin  with  his  spiritual 
daughter  amounted  to  a  grave  case  of  adultery,  for  which  he  must  be 
deposed  and  undergo  penance  for  twelve  years,  provided,  always,  that 
the  facts  had  become  known  to  the  people,2  thus  indicating  that  scandal 
rather  than  sin  was  the  danger  most  dreaded. 

It  wTas  inevitable  that  this  trouble  should  continue,  as  we  have  seen 
it  do  throughout  the  whole  history  of  a  celibate  priesthood.3  That  it 
was  the  subject  of  frequent  and  indignant  reprehension  on  the  part 
of  those  who  sought  to  elevate  and  purify  the  church  we  may  well 
believe.  Calixtus  II.  freely  assumes  the  perdition  of  the  priest  who 
thus  betrays  the  sacred  confidence  reposed  in  him,  denouncing  him 
as  a  lion  devouring  sheep,  as  a  bear  attacking  a  traveller  who  has 
lost  his  way,  as  a  fowler  spreading  lures  for  birds  and  attracting 
them  with  sweet  sounds,  while  the  woman  he  treats  not  as  a  partner 
in  guilt,  but  as  an  unfortunate  who  finds  destruction  where  she  is 
seeking  salvation.4  It  is  observable  here  that  the  fault  is  assumed 
to  lie  exclusively  with  the  confessor,  and  such  is  likewise  the  case  in 
the  eloquent  denunciations  of  Savonarola,  who  declares  that  the 
Italian  cities  are  full  of  these  wolves  in  sheep’s  clothing,  who  are 
constantly  seeking  to  entice  the  innocent  into  sin  by  all  the  arts  for 
which  their  spiritual  directorship  affords  so  much  scope.5  The  extent 
to  which  the  evil  sometimes  grew  may  be  guessed  from  a  case  men¬ 
tioned  by  Erasmus,  in  which  a  theologian  of  Louvain  refused  absolu- 


essary,  v.  Concil.  Cabillon.  II.  ann. 
813  c.  xxxiii.  (Cf.  c.  xxv.  xxxii.).  It 
was  finally  settled  and  auricular  con¬ 
fession  made  obligatory  by  the  Council 
of  Lateran  in  1215  (Concil.  Lateranens. 
IV.  ann.  1215  c.  xxi.). 

1  Gratian.  Caus.  xxx.  q.  i.  can.  8  — 
I  accept  this  decretal  as  genuine  on 
Jafie’s  authority,  though  its  authen¬ 
ticity  seems  to  me  more  than  doubtful. 

2  Gratian.  Caus.  xxx.  q.  i.  can.  9, 10. 


3  See  ante,  passim,  especially  p.  350. 

4  Calixti  II.  Serm.  i.  de  S.  Jacob. 
(Migne’s  Patrolog.  T.  163  p.  1390). — 
The  genuineness  of  these  sermons  has 
been  doubted,  but  they  are  unquestion¬ 
ably,  if  not  by  Calixtus,  by  a  writer 
nearly  contemporary. 

5  Perrens,  Jerome  Savonarole,  p.  71. 
See  also  Cornelius  Agrippa,  De  Vani- 
tate  Scientiar.  c.  lxiv. 


568 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


tion  to  a  pastor  who  confessed  to  having  maintained  illicit  relations 
with  no  less  than  two  hundred  nuns  confided  to  his  spiritual  charge.1 

The  view  which  was  taken  of  this  crime  during  the  progress  of  the 
Reformation  is  set  forth  in  a  work  on  the  Criminal  Canon  Law 
printed  in  Venice  in  1543,  which  intimates  that  improper  relations 
between  a  confessor  and  his  penitents  are  not  much  worse  than 
ordinary  concubinage,  but  that  when  they  become  publicly  known 
they  should  be  severely  punished  by  deprivation  and  imprisonment, 
seeing  that  their  notoriety  tends  to  prevent  men  from  allowing  their 
wives  and  daughters  to  confess,  and  exposes  the  sacrament  of  peni¬ 
tence  to  the  assaults  of  the  heretics.2  It  was  probably  this  worldly 
-wisdom  which  prevented  the  Council  of  Trent  from  alluding  specifi¬ 
cally  to  the  matter  and  endeavoring  to  put  an  end  to  a  crime  so 
heinous,  for  assuredly  it  had  not  grown  less  in  the  ever  increasing 
license  of  the  age.  It  is  rather  curious  that  in  Spain,  the  only 
kingdom  where  heresy  was  not  allowed  to  get  a  foothold,  the  trouble 
seems  to  have  been  greatest  and  to  have  first  called  for  special 
remedial  measures.  Already,  in  1556,  Paul  IV.  had  addressed  a 
brief  to  the  Inquisitors  of  Grenada,  calling  their  attention  to  the 
frequency  of  the  crime  and  assuming  that  confessors  who  could  so 
abuse  their  office  must  hold  unorthodox  views  as  to  the  sacrament  of 
penitence,  which  rendered  them  suspect  of  heresy  and  thus  brought 
them  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  Holy  Office.  He  therefore  in¬ 
structed  the  Inquisitors  to  prosecute  such  offenders  zealously,  but  it 
was  deemed  best  not  to  attract  public  attention  to  a  matter  so  delicate, 
lest  the  faithful  should  be  deterred  from  frequenting  the  confessional. 
The  investigations  were  accordingly  prosecuted  in  secret,  and  the 
criminals  were  privately  punished.3 

Enough  was  discovered  to  show  that  the  trouble  was  general,  and 
in  1564  Pius  IV.  issued  a  Bull  addressed  to  the  Inquisitor  General, 
in  which,  assuming  like  his  predecessor  that  the  offence  must  be 
heretical,  he  authorized  the  Holy  Office  to  prosecute  it  throughout 
the  Spanish  dominions,  and  revoked  all  immunities  which  the  monastic 
orders  might  enjoy  exempting  them  from  local  jurisdiction.4  This 
brought  the  subject  formally  within  the  scope  of  the  Inquisition  which 


1  Limborch  Hist.  Inquisitionis  p.  I 
34. 

2  Bernard.  Diaz  de  Luco  Pract. 

Crimin.  Canon,  cap.  lxxv.,  lxxvi. 

(Ed.  1543,  pp.  72-3). 


3  Llorente,  Hist,  de  l’lnquisition 
d’Espagne,  Ch.  xxvm.  Art.  i.  No.  4. 

*  Bull.  Cum  sicut  nuper  (Mag.  Bull. 
Rom.  II.  4.  Ed.  1742). 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


569 


thenceforth  took  charge  of  it  in  those  countries  blessed  with  that 
institution.  In  some  portions  of  Spain  the  Inquisitors  added  the 
crime  of  “solicitation  ”  to  the  list  of  offences  published  in  their  annual 
“Edict  of  Denunciation,”  which  required  every  one,  under  pain  of 
excommunication,  to  denounce  to  the  Holy  Office  all  cases  of  which 
he  might  happen  to  be  cognizant.  Gonsalvo  relates  that  in  1563 
this  was  done  in  Seville,  when  it  brought  such  a  crowd  of  accusing 
women  to  the  Inquisition  that  twenty  secretaries  were  unable  to  take 
down  the  depositions,  within  the  allotted  time  of  thirty  days,  and  the 
limit  had  to  be  extended  until  it  reached  the  term  of  four  months, 
causing  finally  so  great  a  popular  ferment  and  implicating  so  large  a 
number  of  ecclesiastics  that  the  attempt  had  to  be  abandoned.1 

Llorente  considers  this  to  be  an  exaggeration,  as  is  probably  the 
case,  but  he  admits  that  the  Conseyo  de  la  Suprema  was  led  to  forbid 
the  inclusion  of  the  offence  in  the  Edict  of  Denunciation,  which 
greatly  diminished  the  number  of  accusations,  and  this  prohibition 
wTas  repeated  in  1571,  in  the  hope  that  through  the  machinery  of  the 
episcopal  courts  the  crime  would  be  suppressed;  but  this  expectation 
proving  illusory,  in  1576  the  Conseyo  ordered  the  crime  to  be  rein¬ 
stated  in  the  Edict.2 3 * 

In  1608  Paul  V.  seems  suddenly  to  have  awakened  to  the  necessity 
of  extending  to  Portugal  the  means  employed  in  Spain,  and  he  issued 
to  the  Portuguese  Inquisitor  General  a  Bull  similar  in  purport  to  those 
of  his  predecessors.  Little  was  accomplished,  even  in  these  favored 
countries,  and  in  1622  Gregory  XV.  published  a  Bull  extending  to 
all  Christendom  the  provisions  of  the  previous  ones,  and  granting  to 
the  episcopal  courts  full  jurisdiction  over  all  accused  of  “solicitation,” 
notwithstanding  whatever  immunities  they  might  otherwise  enjoy;  a 
single  witness  was  pronounced  sufficient,  when  supported  by  circum¬ 
stantial  evidence,  and  the  punishment  of  those  convicted  was  left  to 
the  discretion  of  the  judge,  with  the  suggestion  that  it  might  extend 
to  perpetual  imprisonment  or  condemnation  to  the  galleys  for  life,  or 
even  abandonment  to  the  secular  arm — that  Inquisitorial  euphuism 
for  the  faggot  and  the  stake.5*  Apparently  these  Bulls  received 


1  Beg.  Gonsalvii  Montan.  Inquisit. 
Hispan.  Exemplis  Illustrata,  pp.  184 
sqq.  (Ed.  Heidelbergse,  1567). 

2  Llorente,  loc.  cit.  Nos.  6-8. 

3  Bull.  IJniversi  Dominici  Gregis. 

(Mag.  Bull.  Bom.  III.  484). 

In  Spain,  by  the  Carta  Acordada  of 


Aug.  3d,  1629,  the  Bull  of  Gregory 
XV.  was  to  be  referred  to  in  the  Edict 
of  Denunciation  ;  and  by  the  Carta  of 
Sept.  12th,  1634,  a  clause  was  to  be 
added  to  the  Edict  to  the  effect  that 
notwithstanding  the  Bull,  the  offence 
was  reserved  exclusively  to  the  Inquisi- 
iton. — Breve  Besumen  de  las  Cartas 


570 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


slender  attention,  for  in  1633  a  special  decree  directs  that  they  shall 
he  read  at  least  once  a  year  and  an  emphatic  warning  be  given  in  a 
chapter  of  each  order,  and  sworn  evidence  of  the  fact  be  transmitted 
to  the  congregation  of  the  Inquisition  at  Rome.1  Even  this  was  but 
partially  successful.  Gregory’s  Bull  w*as  not  published  in  either 
France  or  Germany,  and  for  a  century  or  more  its  observance  through¬ 
out  those  regions  depended  entirely  upon  such  bishops,  of  whom  there 
were  hut  few,  who  might  see  fit  to  promulgate  its  regulations  in  their 
individual  dioceses ; 2  although  the  established  rule  of  the  church  pro¬ 
tected  the  criminal  by  not  permitting  a  woman  who  had  been  seduced 
in  the  confessional  to  name  her  seducer  to  another  confessor.3 

Even  in  the  kingdoms  where  the  Bull  was  legally  received  and 
published,  its  provisions  in  practice  seem  to  have  been  held  as  directed 
almost  exclusively  against  those  who  might  be  foolish  enough  to  incur 
suspicion  of  heresy  by  asserting  that  they  were  not  aware  of  their 
guilt.  While  the  Holy  Office  stretched  its  power  to  convict  and 
punish  all  the  wretched  heretics  whom  it  could  bring  within  its  grasp, 
it  wTas  singularly  tender  of  those  whom  successive  popes  denounced 
as  the  worst  of  offenders.  In  a  learned  work  on  the  subject,  the 
author,  an  official  of  the  Portuguese  Inquisition,  urges  the  caution 
requisite  in  proceedings  which  affect  the  honor  of  ecclesiastics,  bring¬ 
ing  scandal  and  grief  to  the  faithful  and  glory  and  joy  to  the  heretic. 
As  the  accused  had  all  presumptions  in  his  favor,  since  he  had  been 


Acordadas  antiquas  y  modernas,  dis- 
puesto  por  Abecedario,  s.  v.  Solicitante 
(MS.  Bib.  Beg.  Hafniens.  No.  2186,  p. 
264).  That  the  Court  of  Rome  kept 
faith  in  the  matter  of  solicitation  would 
seem  to  be  proved  by  a  case  occurring 
in  1695  when  Dr.  Augustin  Yelda, 
rector  of  La  Sallana  in  Valencia  was 
accused  before  the  Inquisition,  and  fled 
to  Rome,  where  he  presented  himself 
to  the  Sacred  Congregation  and  was 
ordered  to  return.  This  he  did,  but 
with  what  result  is  not  noted  (Ibid.  p. 
339).  [This  exceedingly  interesting 
MS.  is  a  manual  for  use  in  one  of  the 
tribunals  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition, 
compiled  about  the  year  1670,  with  notes 
bringing  it  down  to  the  middle  of  the 
18th  century.  I  take  this  occasion  of 
expressing  my  obligations  to  the  gentle¬ 
men  in  charge  of  the  Royal  Library  of 
Copenhagen,  of  the  Bodleian  Library 
of  Oxford,  and  of  the  Royal  Library 


of  Munich,  for  their  courtesy  in  com¬ 
municating  to  me  a  number  of  MSS.] 

1  Referred  to  in  a  Decree  of  1745 
(Bullar.  Benedicti  XI Y.  T.  I.  p.  291). 

2  Pontas,  Diet,  de  Cas  de  Conscience, 
Paris,  1741,  T.  I.  p.  862. — Amort, 
Diet.  Selectt.  Casuum  Conscientiae, 
Aug.  Yind.  1733,  T.  I.  pp.  704—5. 
From  the  latter  we  learn  that  a  few 
years  previously  the  Franciscans  of 
Bavaria  had  agreed  to  receive  the  Bull 
in  so  far  as  to  prohibit  any  of  their 
confessors  from  absolving  a  penitent 
who  had  been  solicited  by  those  of  their 
own  order,  unless  she  would  permit 
him  to  denounce  the  culprit  to  the 
Superior — an  example  which  the  writer 
wishes  were  followed  elsewhere,  as  it 
would  be  very  usful  in  repressing  many 
scandals  which  afflicted  the  German 
church. 

3  Rodriguez,  Nueva  Somma  de  'Casi 
de  Coscienza,  P.  I.  cap.  liii.  No.  10. 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


571 


selected  for  the  sacred  functions  of  the  confessional,  and  as  women 
were  by  nature  inconstant,  corruptible,  deceitful,  mendacious,  and 
given  to  perjury,  he  concludes  that  the  evidence  of  a  single  witness 
is  wholly  inconclusive;  two  witnesses  of  good  character  may  justify 
the  seclusion  of  the  accused,  either  in  prison  or  in  his  own  convent 
or  house,  but  four  were  necessary  to  his  conviction;  he  decides 
adversely  the  question  whether  deficiency  of  evidence  can  be  supple¬ 
mented  by  torture;  and  he  cites  Potiphar’s  wife  to  caution  his 
brethren  against  lending  too  hasty  credence  to  accusations  which 
may  be  only  the  revengeful  promptings  of  a  baffled  tempter.1  Casuists 
were  found  to  argue  that  the  solicitation  must  occur  during  the  act 
of  confession  itself  to  bring  the  accused  Avithin  the  words  of  the 
papal  decrees,  which  were  not  applicable  even  if  it  took  place  in  the 
confessional  immediately  before  the  woman  commenced  to  confess,  or 
immediately  after  she  had  received  absolution.2  The  accused  who 
denied,  might  be  shown  the  torture,  but  could  not  be  exposed  to  it, 
and  if  punished,  his  punishment  must  be  secret,  so  as  not  to  give  rise 
to  popular  disquiet.3  In  Spain,  when  the  local  tribunal  had  agreed 
upon  a  sentence,  it  could  not  be  executed  without  referring  the  case 
and  all  the  evidence  to  the  Conseyo  de  la  Suprema;4  but  the  sentence 
wfflich  was  thus  so  carefully  to  be  considered,  was  not  usually 
severe.  Some  instructions  on  the  subject  issued  in  1577,  after 
premising  that  there  must  be  neither  public  penitence  nor  appear¬ 
ance  in  an  auto  de  fe,  and  that  the  sentence,  unlike  that  of  heretics, 
must  be  made  known  only  to  the  ecclesiastics  of  the  place,  proceed 
to  state  that  the  penalties  to  be  imposed  on  the  guilty  are  at  the 
discretion  of  the  Tribunal,  except  that  he  is  obliged  to  abjure  the  im¬ 
plied  heresy  and  is  prohibited  from  hearing  confessions  in  the  future. 
Whether  he  is  to  be  suspended  from  administering  the  other  sacra¬ 
ments,  or  from  preaching,  and  whether  he  is  to  be  imprisoned  or 
banished  from  the  place  of  his  crime,  must  depend  upon  the  gravity 
of  the  offence.  In  grave  cases,  secular  priests  may  be  punished  by 
seclusion,  or  deprivation  of  function  or  benefice,  or  pecuniary  fines, 
with  discipline,  secret  prayers  and  fasting ;  and  monks  may  be  visited 
with  the  discipline,  removal  from  the  scene  of  their  misdeeds,  sus- 


1  Eod.  a  Cunha  pro  SS.  D.  N.  PP. 
Pauli  Y.  Statuto  nuper  emisso  in  Con- 
fessarios  Feminas  solicitantes  Quaest. 
xxii.  No.  8;  xxiii.  No.  4,  5,  6,  8,  11, 
12,  14  (4to.  Benavente  1611). 

2  Ant.  de  Sousa  Opusc.  circa  Constit. 


Pauli  PP.  Y.  in  Confessarios  allicientes 
etc.  4to.Ulyssip.  1623, Tract,  i.cap.  xviii. 

3  Ibid.  Tract,  n.  cap.  xviii.  No.  9-12. 

4  MS.  Bib.  Beg.  Hafniens,  No.  2186, 
p.  264. 


572 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


pension  or  privation  of  orders,  of  the  privilege  of  voting  in  their 
convents,  and  relegation  to  the  last  place  in  the  choir  and  refectory.1 
All  this  manifests  not  only  a  provident  care  to  prevent  scandal  among 
the  faithful,  but  a  singular  tolerance  of  crime  when  compared  with 
the  severity  which  characterized  the  ordinary  operations  of  the  Inqui¬ 
sition,  in  lapses  of  faith  however  slight.  A  man  who  asserted  that 
simple  fornication  was  not  a  mortal  sin  was  treated  as  a  heretic  and 
“ relaxed”  or  “reconciled,”  with  all  the  tremendous  consequent 
penalties  upon  him  and  his  posterity;  and  it  is  significant  in  many 
ways  to  observe  that  a  culprit  guilty  of  prostituting  the  confessional 
to  seduce  his  spiritual  daughters  was  to  be  punished  by  being  made 
to  take  the  lowest  seat  in  the  choir.  This  misplaced  lenity  was  more 
than  carried  out  in  practice.  According  to  Llorente,  the  records  of 
the  Inquisition  show  that  not  ten  per  cent,  of  those  accused  were 
convicted;  and  even  when  convicted  it  was  not  unusual  for  the  con¬ 
vict,  through  influences  brought  to  bear  on  the  Inquisitors  General, 
to  obtain  a  removal  of  the  interdiction  of  hearing  confessions.2  In 
one  case  of  special  atrocity  which  occurred  under  the  eyes  of  Llorente 
himself,  the  culprit,  in  addition  to  the  discipline,  deprivation  of  vote, 
and  degradation  to  the  lowest  seat  in  the  choir  (he  had  been  Pro¬ 
vincial  of  the  Capuchins  of  New  Grenada),  was  condemned  to  five 
years’  imprisonment  in  a  convent  of  his  owTn  order — a  most  inade¬ 
quate  penalty  for  a  man  who  had  seduced  thirteen  nuns  in  a  convent 
under  his  spiritual  guardianship.3  In  the  horrible  affair  of  Corella, 
wThich  occurred  in  1743,  it  is  true  that  the  Abbess,  Dona  Agueda  de 
Luna,  died  under  the  torture;  and  her  principal  accomplice,  Fray 
Juan  de  la  Vega,  after  being  tortured  in  his  examination,  was 
declared  suspect  in  the  highest  degree  and  was  confined  in  the  desert 
convent  of  Duruelo  till  his  death,  but  in  this  case  the  accused  were 
Molinists,  or  Illuminati,  which  of  itself  rendered  them  worthy  of  the 
stake,  and  in  addition,  besides  numerous  infanticides,  they  had 
entered  into  a  pact  with  Satan.4 

The  nunneries,  indeed,  appear  to  have  suffered  especially  from  this 
cause,  particularly  when  their  spiritual  directors  were  monks.  This 
was  a  complaint  of  old  standing,  and  the  authors  of  the  “  Consilium 
de  Emendanda  Ecclesia,”  in  1538,  proposed  to  put  an  end  to  the 


1  Ibid.  pp.  264-5. 

2  Llorente,  Chap,  xxviii.  Art.  i.  Nos- 

20,  23. 


8  Ibid.  Art.  ii. 

4  Ibid.  Ch.  xl.  Art.  ii.  Nos.  2-14. 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


573 


scandals  thence  arising  by  prohibiting  members  of  the  conventual 
orders  from  serving  in  that  capacity,  which  was  to  be  confided  in  the 
future  to  the  Episcopal  Ordinaries.1  A  more  partial  cure  was  that 
suggested  in  1627  by  Urban  VIII.  when  he  granted  a  special  Bull 
to  Christobal  de  Lobera,  Bishop  of  Cordova,  depriving  the  mendicant 
orders  of  their  right  to  papal  jurisdiction,  and  subjecting  them  to  the 
Ordinary  of  the  diocese  in  order  to  put  a  stop,  if  possible,  to  crimes 
committed  by  them  in  the  confessional.2  These  monastic  troubles 
wrere  by  no  means  confined  to  Spain.  When,  as  we  shall  see  here¬ 
after,  the  Grand  Duke,  Leopold  of  Tuscany,  undertook  in  1774  to 
reform  the  nunneries  of  his  dominions,  they  had  for  a  century  and  a 
half  been  the  scene  of  the  worst  disorders,  committed  by  the  regular 
clergy  who  were  their  spiritual  directors,  and  Leopold  found  his 
principal  opposition  in  the  court  of  Borne  itself.3  In  Provence,  the 
canons  of  Pignan  made  no  secret  of  their  domination  over  the  bodies 
as  well  as  over  the  souls  of  the  nuns  of  the  district,  so  that  in  a  single 
year  there  were  sixteen  declarations  of  pregnancy  officially  made  by 
the  latter,  who  seemed  to  consider  it  as  one  of  the  duties  of  their  pro¬ 
fession.  As  Michelet  remarks,  this  at  least  diminished  the  monastic 
crime  of  infanticide,  for  the  children  were  openly  put  out  to  nurse 
and  were  generally  adopted  by  their  foster-mothers.4 

Some  statistics,  given  by  Llorente  from  the  archives  of  the  Inqui¬ 
sition,  afford  a  curious  commentary  upon  the  influence  of  monasticism. 
Comparing  the  number  of  accusations  brought  for  this  offence  with 
the  total  census  of  the  secular  and  regular  clergy,  he  found  that  one 
out  of  every  ten  thousand  secular  priests  w~as  charged  with  it,  while 
among  the  monastic  orders  the  proportion  was  much  greater.  The 
Benedictines,  Bernardines,  Jeronymites,  Premonstratensians,  Basil- 
ians,  Agonizantes,  Theatins,  and  Oratorians,  and  the  canons  regular 
of  Calatrava,  Santiago,  Alcantara,  Montesa,  St.  Juan,  and  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  showed  a  proportion  of  one  in  every  thousand. 
Among  the  Carmelites,  Augustinians,  Mathurins,  the  Order  of  La 
Merced,  the  Dominicans,  Franciscans,  and  Minims  of  St.  Francis 
de  Paul,  there  was  one  in  every  five  hundred :  one  in  four  hundred 


1  Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Tri¬ 
dent.  II.  602. — Caraffa  and  his  coad¬ 
jutors,  indeed,  went  so  far  as  to  suggest 
the  entire  suppression  of  the  conventual 
orders  (Ibid.  601). 

2  A  printed  copy  of  this  Bull  occurs 

in  some  voluminous  pleadings  between 


the  church  of  Cordova  and  the  Inquisi¬ 
tion,  in  1643. — MS.  Bibl.  Bodl.  Arch. 

S.  130. 

3  De  Potter,  Vie  de  Scipion  de’Ricci, 

T.  I.  pp.  87  sqq.  258  sqq. 

4  Michelet,  La  Sorciere,  Ch.  ix. 


574 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


among  the  barefooted  orders  of  the  Augustinians,  Mathurins,  and 
Fathers  of  La  Merced;  and  one  in  two  hundred  among  the  bare¬ 
footed  Carmelites,  the  Alcantarians  and  the  Capuchins.1  These 
results  Llorente  explains  partly  by  the  greater  attention  paid  by 
some  orders  to  the  duties  of  the  confessional,  but  chiefly  by  the  dif¬ 
ferences  in  their  rules  of  discipline.  Those  who,  like  the  secular 
priests,  had  comparative  wealth  and  freedom  were  able  to  gratify 
their  passions  without  resorting  to  indulgence  so  dangerous,  while 
those  whose  vows  bound  them  to  poverty  and  asceticism  were  most 
liable  to  be  tempted  by  the  opportunities  of  the  confessional.  It 
was  precisely  the  orders  that  were  most  rigid  which  produced  the 
greatest  number  of  culprits.  Another  significant  fact  was  that  the 
greater  portion  of  these  accusations  were  brought  by  nuns,  and  from 
this  Llorente  seeks  to  explain  the  small  proportion  of  cases  in  which 
the  accused  was  found  guilty.  The  inquiries  necessary  to  confession 
often  appeared  to  the  simple-minded  devotee  a  direct  enticement  to 
sin,  and  her  excited  imagination,  in  dwelling  upon  them,  would  lead 
her  to  imagine  herself  the  object  of  her  confessor’s  impure  desires — a 
defence  of  the  system  almost  as  damaging  as  the  facts  which  it 
attempts  to  extenuate.2 

Whatever  may  be  Llorente’s  opinion  as  to  the  comparative  inno¬ 
cence  of  the  secular  priesthood,  it  does  not  appear  to  have  been  shared 
by  the  church.  The  local  ecclesiastical  legislation  of  the  seventeenth 
century  is  surcharged  with  innumerable  minute  directions  as  to  the 
age  of  the  confessor  and  the  form  and  structure  of  confessionals;  re¬ 
stricting  female  penitents,  unless  dangerously  ill,  from  being  heard 
except  in  church  and  by  daylight,  and  prescribing  the  relative  posi¬ 
tions  to  be  maintained  by  confessor  and  penitent.3  In  the  earlier, 
though  scarce  purer,  period  of  the  fifteenth  century  John  Myrc  con¬ 
tents  himself  with  simpler  rules — 


But  when  a  wommon  cometh  to  the 
Loke  hyre  face  that  thou  ne  se, 


1  Llorente,  Chap.  xxvm.  Art.  i.  No. 
14. 

2  The  dangerous  suggestiveness  of 
the  questions  asked  in  the  confessional 
was  recognized,  and  confessors  were 
6omtimes  warned  to  be  careful. — Synod. 
Diceces.  Mechlin,  n.  ann.  1609  Tit.  v. 
cap.  i. 

3  See,  for  instance,  Concil.  Toletan. 
ann.  1582,  Decret.  xxvm.,  xxix. 


(Aguirre,  VI.  11). — Synod.  Oriolan. 
ann.  1600  cap.  xix.  (Ib.  p.  450). — 
Synod.  Beneventan.  ann.  1693  Tit.  liv. 
c.  iii.  (Collect.  Lacens.  I.  94). — Synod. 
Neapol.  ann.  1699  Tit.  xi.  c.  i.  No.  11 
(Ib.  p.  232).  Also  a  curious  list  of 
twenty  abuses  of  the  confessional  in  a 
letter  from  the  Bishop  of  Antwerp  to 
the  Archbishop  of  Mechlin  in  1624 
(Synodicon  Mechliniense,  T.  I.  p.  474). 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


575 


But  teche  hyre  to  knele  downe  the  by, 

And  sum  what  thy  face  from  hyre  thou  wry, 

Stille  as  ston  ther  thou  sitte, 

And  kepe  the  welle  that  thou  ne  spytte. 

Koghe  thow  not  thenne  thy  thonkes, 

Ne  wrynge  thou  not  wyth  thy  sclionkes — 1 

and  the  attention  which  was  now  given  to  the  minutest  details  of 
these  matters  shows  how  much  men’s  minds  were  excited  by  the  sub¬ 
ject,  and  how,  as  usual,  the  church  sought  palliatives  for  the  evil  to 
which  she  dared  not  apply  a  radical  cure. 

A  natural  result  of  the  effort  made  to  suppress  the  evil  was  a  refine¬ 
ment  of  ingenuity  on  the  part  of  the  evil-doers  to  escape  the  result 
of  their  transgressions,  and  the  subtlety  of  casuists  was  taxed  to  the 
utmost  in  defining  with  precision  all  the  acts  and  motives  which  would 
render  offenders  liable  to  the  penalties  decreed  in  the  Papal  Bulls, 
thus  giving  rise  to  quite  a  literature  specially  devoted  to  the  sub¬ 
ject.2  In  1614,  the  Roman  Inquisition,  under  Paul  V.,  was  obliged 
formally  to  declare  that  priests  who  used  the  confessional  as  a  place 
of  assignation  were  liable  to  the  decrees,  even  though  not  engaged  at 
the  moment  in  administering  the  sacrament  of  penitence;3  and  in 
1665  Alexander  VII.  felt  it  necessary  to  condemn  the  proposition 
that  a  confessor,  while  hearing  a  confession,  could  give  his  penitent  a 
love-letter  without  incurring  the  guilt  of  solicitation.4  The  mode, 
however,  which  offered  the  surest  escape  wTas  for  the  confessor  to 
absolve  his  partner  in  sin,  and  thus  release  her  from  all  obligation  to 
denounce  him,5  for  such  an  absolution  was  good,  according  to  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas.6  This  gave  the  church  infinite  trouble.  It  satis¬ 
fied  the  conscience  of  the  woman,  for  the  council  of  Trent  had  taken 
care  to  declare  that  priests  in  mortal  sin  did  not  lose  the  power  of 
absolution  conferred  on  them  by  the  Holy  Ghost  in  their  ordination,7 


1  Instructions  for  a  Parish  Priest,  p. 
27  (Early  Eng.  Text  Soc.  1868). 

2  As  specimens  of  this,  I  may  refer 
to  Cardinal  Cozza’s  “  Dubia  Selecta 
emergentia  circa  Sollicitationem  in 
Confessione  Sacramentali  juxta  Apos- 
tolicas  Constitutiones  ”  Lovanii,  1750 
— and  the  similar  works  by  a  Cunha 
and  de  Sousa,  quoted  above. 

3  Cozza,  op.  cit.  Dub.  xvii.  No.  112. 

4  Mag.  Bull.  Boman.  Tom.  VI. 

App.  p.  1. 


5  Occasional  references  to  this  prac¬ 
tice  may  be  found  in  earlier  times.  See, 
for  instance,  Concil.  Monasteries,  ann. 
1279  c.  xv.  (Hartzheim  III.  649) — 
Suppression  of  Monasteries,  No.  xvii. 
(Camden  Soc.). —  Synod.  Tornacens. 
ann.  1520  c.  vii.  (Hartzheim  VI.  156). 

6  V.  Pontas,  Diet,  de  Cas  de  Con¬ 
science,  I.  836. 

7  Cone.  Trident,  Sess.  xiv.  De  Pceni- 
tent.  c.  vi. 


576 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


while  so  vile  a  prostitution  of  the  sacrament  could  not  but  bring  the 
whole  system  into  contempt.  Yet  casuists  wTere  found  to  distinguish 
between  the  guilt  of  him  who  soothes  the  conscience  of  the  woman 
whom  he  had  seduced  by  absolving  her  after  the  act,  in  which  case 
he  is  not  exposed  to  the  penalties  of  solicitation,1  and  of  him  who 
promises  absolution  in  advance  as  a  temptation  to  sin,  wdiich  brings 
him  within  the  scope  of  the  decrees.2 

The  condemnation  issued  in  1665  by  Alexander  VII.  of  the  pro¬ 
position  that  absolution  under  such  circumstances  relieves  the  woman 
from  the  obligation  of  denunciation3  show^s  the  extent  of  the  evil  and 
the  boldness  of  the  perpetrators,  but  did  nothing  to  cure  it.  A  more 
effective  step  had  been  taken  in  1661  by  the  provincial  synod  of 
Cambray,  wThich  wras  the  revival  of  the  ancient  rule  that  no  confessor 
should  have  power  in  such  cases  to  grant  absolution  to  his  paramour 
except  in  articulo  mortis ;  a  precedent  which  was  followed  in  1663 
by  the  congregation  of  arch-priests  of  the  province  of  Mechlin.4 
This  action  seems  to  have  aroused  considerable  opposition  and  no 
little  discussion,  for,  at  a  convocation  of  bishops,  held  at  Brussels  in 
January,  1665,  it  was  the  first  subject  submitted  for  debate.5  The 
question,  howrever,  remained  unsettled,  for,  although  the  power  to 
grant  such  absolution  was  specially  excepted  in  all  commissions  issued 
to  confessors  in  the  province,  the  evil  continued,  and  again  came  up 
for  discussion  at  the  synod  of  Namur,  in  1698,  when  the  practice  was 
peremptorily  forbidden  for  the  future.6  In  the  province  of  Besangon 
a  canon  of  1689  declares  that  although  the  abuse  had  been  long  pro¬ 
hibited,  yet  that  it  continued  to  flourish ;  and  a  formal  enunciation 
was  considered  necessary,  taking  away  the  power  of  conferring  abso¬ 
lution  in  such  cases — a  regulation  which  had  to  be  repeated  in  1707.7 
In  1709  the  Cardinal  de  Noailles,  Archbishop  of  Paris,  issued  an 
order  prohibiting  it  in  his  diocese,  but  as  late  as  1741  Pontas  informs 
us  that  such  absolutions  wTere  valid  in  all  places  w^here  they  had  not 
been  forbidden  by  episcopal  authority.8  This  extraordinary  confes- 


1  Del  Bene  de  Offic.  S.  Inquisit.  P. 
II.  Dub.  ccxxxvn.  \  ix.  No.  6. 

2  Cozza,  op.  cit.  Dub.  xxxiii. 

3  Mag.  Bull.  Roman.  Tom.  VI.  App. 

p.  1. 

4  Synod.  Camerac.  ann.  1661  c.  xi. 

(Hartzheim  IX.  888).  —  Synodicon 

Mecbliniense  II.  319. 


5  Ibid.  I.  559. 

6  Synod.  Namurcens.  ann.  1698  c. 
xxviii.  (Hartzheim  X.  219). 

7  Synod.  Bisuntin.  ann.  1707  Tit. 
xiv.  c.  xiv.  (Ibid.  323). 

8  Pontas,  Diet,  de  Cas  de  Conscience* 
Paris,  1741,  T.  I.  p.  837.— From  the 
German  edition  of  Amort  (Diet,  selectt. 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


577 


sion  on  such  a  subject  was  most  discreditable  to  the  church,  and  in 
1741  Benedict  XI Y.  signalized  the  commencement  of  his  pontificate 
by  converting  these  local  regulations  into  a  general  law  by  his  Bull, 
“Sacramentuin  Poenitentim,  ”  in  which  he  not  only  endeavored  to 
sweep  away  all  the  refinements  by  which  casuists  had  so  nearly  nulli¬ 
fied  the  decrees  of  his  predecessors,  but  he  devoted  a  special  clause  to 
the  device  by  which  the  sacrilegious  ministers  of  Satan  rather  than  of 
God  absolved  their  partners  in  guilt.  This  he  absolutely  prohibited 
for  the  future,  except  in  articulo  mortis  when  no  other  priest  could 
be  had;  he  took  away  the  power  of  administering  the  sacrament  of 
penitence  in  such  cases,  pronounced  absolution  null  and  void  when 
thus  given,  and  punished  the  attempt  to  give  it  by  ipso  facto  ex- 
communication  removable  by  the  papal  court  alone.1  Four  years 
later,  he  relaxed  somewhat  the  rigor  of  these  regulations  in  a  manner 
which  shows  how  everpresent  was  the  fear  of  attracting  attention  to 
the  frailties  of  ecclesiastics,  for  he  permitted  absolution  in  articulo 
mortis  in  all  cases  where  another  confessor  could  not  be  called  in 
without  attracting  attention  and  causing  suspicion  and  scandal,  which 
was  virtually  to  remove  the  prohibition.2  In  the  same  year  he  also 
renewed  the  decree  of  1633  requiring  the  Papal  Bulls  on  the  subject 
to  be  read  at  least  once  a  year  in  the  chapters  of  all  the  monastic 
orders,3  who  seem  to  have  been  the  principal  offenders  in  these 
matters;  doubtless  for  the  reason  which  Llorente  says  was  usually 
alleged  as  an  excuse  by  culprits — because  they  had  no  other 
opportunity  of  sinning.4 

Energetic  as  was  the  legislation  of  Benedict,  it  by  no  means  put 
an  end  to  the  trouble.  The  year  after  his  Bull  appeared,  in  1742, 
the  synod  of  Namur  found  it  necessary  to  remind  confessors  that 
they  could  not  absolve  women  whom  they  had  seduced;5  and  in  1768 
the  Bishop  of  Ypres  was  obliged  to  recall  to  the  attention  of  his 
clergy  the  Bulls  of  Gregory  and  of  Benedict,  and  to  threaten  their 
transgressors  with  excommunication.6  The  abuse  was  by  no  means 


Casuum  Conscientise,  Aug.  Vind.  1733) 
we  learn  that  the  state  of  the  canon 
law  on  this  subject  was  the  same  in 
Germany  as  in  France. 

1  Bull.  Sacrament.  Poenitent.  $  4 
(Bullar.  Benedicti  XIV.  T.  I.  p.  23). 
— In  1742  he  extended  the  provisions 
of  this  constitution  over  the  Greek 
churches  subject  to  Rome. — Bull.  Etsi 
pastoralis  g  ix.  No.  v.  (Concil.  Collect. 
Lacens.  II.  518). 


2  Benedict.  XIV.  Const.  CXX.  $  3 
(Bullar.  I.  219). 

3  Ibid.  p.  291. 

4  Llorente,  Chap.  xvm.  Art.  i.  No. 
13. 

5  Synod.  Namurcens.  ann.  1742  c.  iv. 
(Hartzheim  X.  487). 

6  Instruct.  Pastoral,  ann.  1768  c. 
xcvii.  (Ibid.  638). 


37 


578 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


confined  to  Europe,  but  extended  to  the  missionary  stations  of  the 
church.  In  1775  the  Apostolic  Vicar  of  Cochin  China  inquired  of 
Pius  VI.  whether  the  Bull  of  Benedict  XIV.  applied  to  the  Fran¬ 
ciscan  missionaries  under  his  charge,  and,  if  so,  whether  it  could  not 
be  moderated,  to  which  Pius  replied  affirmatively  as  to  the  first  ques¬ 
tion  and  negatively  as  to  the  second.  That  the  scandal  continued 
is  shown  by  a  pastoral  letter  of  the  Apostolic  Vicar  of  Suchuen  in 
1803. 1  It  is  not  surprising  that  St.  Frangois  de  Sales  should  have 
declared  that  a  confessor  was  to  be  selected  out  of  ten  thousand, 
seeing  that  so  few  among  them  were  fitted  for  the  function.2 

In  considering  the  slow  progress  of  improvement  in  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  clergy,  we  must  bear  in  mind  not  only  the  debased  ma¬ 
terial  which  required  to  be  reformed,  and  the  prevailing  low  stan¬ 
dard  of  sexual  morality  throughout  Europe,  but  also  the  prevalence 
within  the  church  of  the  casuistic  spirit,  which  tended  to  obliterate 
the  distinctions  between  right  and  wrong  and  to  extenuate  all  offences 
against  the  Decalogue.  This  spirit  received  a  powerful  impulse  from 
the  rising  influence  of  the  Company  of  Jesus,  which  furnished  the 
most  distinguished  casuists  and  fostered  the  habit  of  testing  every¬ 
thing  by  an  artificial  standard.  If  scandal  could  be  averted,  if  the 
immediate  temporal  interests  of  the  Order  or  of  the  church  could  be 
subserved,  it  mattered  little  wrhether  morality  suffered ;  and  the  subtle 
dialectics  of  the  schools  could  always  invent  a  justification  for  any 
line  of  action  which  appeared  expedient  at  the  moment.  We  have 
already  seen  how  the  successive  Bulls  of  reforming  pontiffs  directed 
against  the  abuses  of  the  confessional  were  virtually  nullified  in  this 
manner;  and  the  same  processes  were  employed  to  soften  the  harsh¬ 
ness  of  the  canons  which  sought  to  repress  the  other  vices  of  the 
clergy.3  To  one  who  examines  the  works  of  these  skilful  dialec¬ 
ticians,  the  only  wonder  is  that  a  church  which  not  only  tolerated 
but  exalted  them  could  retain  any  respect  for  virtue  or  any  reverence 
for  law,  human  or  divine. 

When  these  resources  failed,  recourse  could  be  had  to  other  means 


1  Instruct.  S.  Inquisit.  Roman,  ann. 
1867  (Collect.  Lacens.  III.  554). — Litt. 
Past.  Episc.  Caradrens.  xxvn.  2,  3 
(Ibid.  VI.  64G-7). 

2  Ap.  Helsen,  Abus  du  Celibat  des 

Pretres,  p.  87. 


3  See,  for  instance,  the  manner  in 
which  Escobar  (Theolog.  Moralis 
Tract,  i.  Ex.  viii.  cap.  3  No.  80)  and 
Avila  (De  Censuris  Eccles.  P.  VII. 
Disp.  iv.  Dub.  vii.  in  fin.)  explain 
away  the  Bull  of  Pius  V.  contra  cleri- 
cos  sodomitas. 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


579 


to  avert  scandal,  as  in  the  case  of  Father  Mena,  a  priest  of  the  Com¬ 
pany  of  Jesus,  at  Salamanca,  who  persuaded  one  of  his  female  peni¬ 
tents  that  God  required  her  to  abandon  herself  to  him.  He  kept 
her  in  a  hermitage  conveniently  near  to  the  College  of  Jesuits  where 
he  officiated,  and  several  children  were  the  result  of  the  union,  when 
the  matter  became  so  notorious  that  the  Inquisition  interfered  and 
threw  the  culprit  into  its  prison  at  Valladolid.  The  Company  of 
Jesus  undertook  his  defence,  and  on  the  strength  of  certificates  of 
his  illness  obtained  his  transfer  to  their  college,  where  he  was  to  be 
watched  by  officials  of  the  Inquisition.  His  apparent  illness  in¬ 
creased,  until  a  report  was  spread  of  his  death;  an  image  with  a 
mask  resembling  him  was  interred  with  all  the  ceremonies  of  religion, 
and  he  was  secretly  conveyed  to  Genoa,  where  he  was  intrusted  with 
a  mission  to  convert  the  Jews.1 

More  strenuous  exertion,  however,  was  required  in  the  struggle 
over  the  case  of  Father  Girard  and  la  Cadiere,  which,  in  1730  and 
1731,  convulsed  society  in  Provence.  Girard  was  a  Jesuit  of  high 
reputation,  wTho  came  to  Toulon  in  1728,  where  he  soon  obtained  the 
spiritual  direction  of  a  number  of  women,  among  vdiom  he  selected 
seven  to  minister  to  his  lusts.  One  of  them,  Catharine  Cadiere,  a 
girl  of  19,  was  especially  distinguished  for  her  exaltation  of  religious 
sensibility,  which  rendered  her  eminently  fitted  for  the  dangerous 
extravagances  of  Quietism.  Under  his  guidance  she  speedily  had 
ecstatic  visions  of  heaven  and  hell,  and  was  marked  as  the  favorite 
of  Divine  Love  by  the  stigmata  ’which  appeared  on  hands,  feet,  fore¬ 
head,  and  side.  While  enjoying  the  popular  veneration  as  a  saint, 
it  was  not  difficult  for  her  spiritual  guide  to  persuade  her  that  God 
required  her  submission  to  him.  This  continued  for  some  months, 
until,  convinced  that  Girard  had  led  her  into  sin,  in  place  of  the 
state  of  perfection  to  which  she  aspired,  she  changed  her  confessor, 
when  the  matter  leaked  out,  and  she  brought  a  formal  accusation 
against  her  seducer.  At  once  the  Company  of  Jesus  took  up  the 
quarrel,  and,  as  it  suited  the  policy  of  Cardinal  Fleury,  the  all- 
powerful  minister,  to  gratify  them,  the  unfortunate  girl  had  no 
chance.  The  Episcopal  courts,  in  which  the  case  was  first  brought, 
sided  with  the  guilty,  and  even  the  secular  tribunals,  to  which  the 
matter  was  transferred,  were  bitterly  hostile  to  her.  The  accuser 
became  the  accused.  She  was  persecuted,  imprisoned,  and  threat- 


1  Factum  pour  Marie  Catherine  Cadiere,  La  Haye,  1731,  pp.  142-44. 


580 


THE  POST-TRIDENTINE  CHURCH. 


ened  with  torture,  and  in  the  Parlement  of  Aix,  before  which  the 
case  was  finally  brought,  two  members  actually  proposed  that  she 
should  be  burnt  alive,  but  agreed,  in  order  to  secure  the  support  of 
others,  to  accept  the  milder  sentence  of  strangling  after  due  infliction 
of  torture,  and  this  verdict  was  brought  before  the  Parlement  for 
debate.  Despite  the  social  influence  of  the  Jesuits,  this  atrocity 
aroused  public  opinion  throughout  Provence  and  excited  tumults 
which  frightened  the  friends  of  Girard,  so  that  when  the  final  vote 
was  taken  only  half  the  members  of  the  Parlement  pronounced  him 
innocent,  the  other  half  voting  for  his  condemnation,  and  he  was 
saved  by  the  casting  vote  of  the  President,  Lebret.  So  strong  wTas 
the  popular  feeling  against  him  that  he  had  to  be  conveyed  away 
secretly  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  the  mob,  and  died  two  years 
afterwards  in  the  odor  of  sanctity,  fully  upheld  by  the  Company  of 
Jesus.  As  for  la  Cadiere,  she  disappeared  from  sight,  and  the  fate 
of  the  unfortunate  girl  is  unknown.1 


1  Michelet,  La  Sorciere,  Chap.  x. ,  xi. , 
xii. — After  reading  the  pleadings  on 
both  sides  (published  at  the  Hague  in 
1731),  I  can  entertain  no  doubt  as  to 


the  guilt  of  Girard.  The  case  at  the 
time  attracted  general  attention  through¬ 
out  Europe. 


XXX. 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


If  the  council  of  Trent  had  thus  failed  utterly  in  its  efforts  to 
create  that  which  had  never  existed — purity  of  morals  under  the  rule 
of  celibacy — it  had  at  length  succeeded  in  its  more  important  task  of 
putting  an  end  to  the  aspirations  of  the  clergy  for  marriage.  With 
the  anathema  for  heresy  confronting  them,  few  could  be  found  so  bold 
as  openly  to  dispute  the  propriety  of  a  law  which  had  been  incorpo¬ 
rated  into  the  articles  of  faith ;  and  the  ingenious  sophistries  and  far¬ 
fetched  logic  of  Bellarmine  were  reverently  received  and  accepted  as 
incontrovertible.  Urbain  Grandier  might  endeavor  to  quiet  the  con¬ 
science  of  his  morganatic  spouse  by  writing  a  treatise  to  prove  the 
lawfulness  of  priestly  wedlock,  but  he  took  care  to  keep  the  manu¬ 
script  carefully  locked  in  his  desk.1  A  man  of  bold  and  independent 
spirit,  fortified  by  unfathomable  learning,  like  Louis  Ellies  Du  Pin, 
might  secretly  favor  marriage,  and  perhaps  might  contract  matri- 


1  When  Grandier  was  arrested  and 
tried  for  sorcery,  his  papers  were  seized, 
and  among  them  was  found  an  essay 
against  sacerdotal  celibacy.  Under 
torture,  he  confessed  that  he  had  written 
it  for  the  purpose  of  satisfying  the  con¬ 
science  of  a  woman  with  whom  he  had 
maintained  marital  relations  for  seven 
years  (Hist,  des  Diables  de  Loudun, 
pp.  85,  191).  The  manuscript  was 
burnt,  with  its  unlucky  author,  but  a 
copy  was  preserved,  which  has  recently 
been  printed  (Petite  Bibliotheque  des 
Curieux,  Paris,  1866).  In  it,  Grandier 
shows  himself  singularly  bold  for  a 
man  of  his  time  and  station.  The  law 
of  nature,  or  moral  law,  he  holds  to  be 
the  direct  exposition  of  the  Divine  will. 
By  it  revealed  law  must  necessarily  be 
interpreted,  and  to  its  standard  ecclesi¬ 


astical  law  must  be  made  to  conform. 
He  evidently  was  made  to  be  burned  as 
a  heretic,  if  he  had  escaped  as  a  sor¬ 
cerer.  The  promise  of  chastity  exacted 
at  ordination  he  regards  as  extorted,  and 
therefore  as  not  binding  on  those  unable 
to  keep  it ;  while  he  does  not  hesitate 
to  assume  that  the  rule  itself  was 
adopted  and  enforced  on  purely  tem¬ 
poral  grounds — “  de  crainte  qu’en  re- 
muant  une  pierre  on  n’esbranlat  la 
puissance  papale ;  car  hors  cette  con¬ 
sideration  d’Estat,  l’Eglise  romaine 
pense  assez  que  le  celibat  n’est  pas 
d ’institution  divine  ni  necessaire  au 
salut,  puisqu’elle  en  dispense  les  par- 
ticuliers,  ce  qu’elle  ne  pourroit  faire  si 
le  celibat  avoit  este  ordonne  d’en  hautM 
(pp.  84-5). 


582 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


mony.1  Du  Pin’s  great  antagonist,  Bossuet,  might  incur  a  similar 
imputation,  and  be  ready  to  partially  yield  the  point  if  thereby  he 
might  secure  the  reconciliation  of  the  hostile  churches.2  All  this, 
however,  could  have  no  influence  on  the  doctrines  and  practice  of 
Catholicism  at  large,  and  the  principle  remained  unaltered  and 
unalterable. 


Yet  it  "was  impossible  that  the  critical  spirit  of  inquiry  which 
marked  the  eighteenth  century,  its  boldness  of  unbelief,  and  its  utter 
want  of  faith  in  God  and  man,  could  leave  unassailed  this  monument 
of  primaeval  asceticism,  while  it  was  so  busy  in  undermining  every¬ 
thing  to  which  the  reverence  of  its  predecessors  had  clung.  Accord¬ 
ingly,  the  latter  half  of  the  century  witnessed  an  active  controversy 
on  the  subject.  In  1T58,  a  canon  of  Estampes,  named  Desforges, 
who  had  been  forced  to  take  orders  by  his  family,  published  a  work 
in  two  volumes  in  "which  he  attempted  to  prove  that  marriage  was 
necessary  for  all  ranks  of  ecclesiastics.  The  book  attracted  atten¬ 
tion,  and  by  order  of  the  Parlement  it  was  burnt,  September  30, 
1T58,  by  the  hangman,  and  the  unlucky  author  was  thrown  into  the 
Bastile.  These  proceedings  were  well  calculated  to  give  publicity  to 
the  work;  it  was  reprinted  at  Douay  in  1772;  a  German  translation 
was  published  in  1782  at  Gottingen  and  Munster,  and  an  Italian 
one,  with  some  omissions,  had  already  appeared  in  1770,  without  an 
acknowledged  place  of  publication.  The  Abbe  Yilliers  undertook  to 
answer  Desforges  in  a  weak  little  volume,  the  “Apologie  du  Celibat 


1  Notwithstanding  his  Sorbonic  de¬ 
gree,  Du  Pin  is  said  to  have  been  se¬ 
cretly  married,  and  to  have  left  a 
widow,  who  even  ventured  to  claim  the 
inheritance  of  his  estate.  He  was  en¬ 
gaged  in  a  correspondence  with  William 
Wake,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  with 
a  vieAV  to  arrange  a  basis  of  reconcilia¬ 
tion  of  the  Anglican  Church  with 
Rome,  and,  according  to  Lafitau, 
Bishop  of  Sisteron,  in  that  correspond¬ 
ence  he  assented  to  the  propriety  of 
sacerdotal  marriage. 

2  I  cannot  pretend  to  decide  the  con¬ 
troversy  as  to  the  alleged  marriage  be¬ 
tween  Bossuet  and  Mdlle.  Desvieux  de 
Mauleon,  nor  to  determine  whether  it 
is  true  that  she  and  her  daughters 
claimed  his  fortune  after  his  death. 
Much  has  been  written  on  both  sides, 
and  I  have  not  the  materials  at  hand 


to  justify  a  positive  opinion,  though  the 
extracts  from  La  Baumelle’s  u  Memoi- 
res  de  Madame  de  Maintenon  ”  given 
by  the  Abbe  Chavard  (Le  Celibat  des 
Pretres,  pp.  474  sqq.)  would  seem  to 
show  that  there  were  good  grounds  for 
asserting  the  marriage.  I  believe,  how¬ 
ever,  that  there  is  no  doubt  of  Bossuet 
engaging  with  Leibnitz  and  Molanus 
in  a  negotiation  as  to  the  terms  on 
which  the  Lutherans  could  reenter  the 
Roman  communion,  and  that  he  pro¬ 
mised,  in  the  name  of  the  pope,  that 
Lutheran  ministers  admitted  to  the 
priesthood  or  episcopate  should  retain 
their  wives.  It  is  asserted  that  the  pro¬ 
posed  arrangement  was  nearly  agreed 
to  on  both  sides,  when  the  pretensions 
of  the  House  of  Hanover  to  the  English 
crown  caused  Leibnitz  to  withdraw 
from  the  undertaking. 


CONTROVERSY  REOPENED. 


583 


Chretien,”  published  in  1762,  which  consists  principally  of  long 
extracts  from  the  Fathers  in  praise  of  virginity.  Even  Italy  felt 
the  movement,  and  an  anonymous  work,  entitled  “  Pregiudizi  del 
Celibato,”  appeared  in  Naples  in  1765,  and  was  reprinted  in  Venice 
in  1766.  Some  more  competent  champion  was  necessary  to  answer 
these  repeated  attacks,  and  the  learned  Abate  Zaccaria  brought  his 
fertile  pen  and  his  inexhaustible  erudition  to  the  rescue  in  his  “  Storia 
Polemica  del  Celibato  Sacro,”  which  saw  the  light  in  1774,  and  which 
not  long  afterwards  was  translated  into  German.  In  1781  appeared 
a  new  aspirant  for  matrimonial  liberty  in  the  Abbe  Gaudin,  who 
issued  at  Geneva  (Lyons)  his  work  entitled  “  Les  inconveniens  du 
celibat  des  pretres,”  a  treatise  of  considerable  learning  and  no  little 
bitterness  against  the  whole  structure  of  sacerdotalism  and  Roman 
supremacy.  This  was  followed,  in  1782,  by  Andreas  Forster,  in  his 
“  De  Coelibatu  Clericorum  Dissertatio,”  published  at  Dillingen,  and 
dedicated  to  Pius  VI.,  for  the  purpose  of  replying  to  the  attacks  of 
the  innovating  Catholics. 

The  latter,  indeed,  had  some  hope  for  the  approaching  realization 
of  their  demands.  The  reforms  which  illustrated  the  minority  of 
Ferdinand  IV.  of  Naples  excited  the  priests  of  Southern  Italy  to 
petition  him  for  the  right  of  marriage,  and  Serrao,  the  Jansenist 
Bishop  of  Potenza,  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  request  would 
have  been  granted  if  the  unfriendly  relations  between  the  courts  of 
Rome  and  Naples  had  continued  much  longer.1  The  Emperor 
Joseph  II.,  amid  his  many  fruitless  schemes  for  philosophical  reform, 
inclined  seriously  to  the  notion  of  permitting  marriage  to  the  priest¬ 
hood  of  his  dominions.  In  an  edict  of  1783  he  asserted,  incidentally, 
that  the  matter  was  subject  to  his  control,2  and  the  advocates  of  cleri¬ 
cal  marriage  confidently  expected  that  in  a  very  short  period  they 
would  see  the  ancient  restrictions  swept  away  by  the  imperial  power. 
A  mass  of  controversial  essays  and  dissertations  made  their  appear¬ 
ance  throughout  Germany,  and  the  well-known  Protestant  theologian 
Henke  took  the  opportunity  of  bringing  out,  in  1783,  a  new  edition 


1  Chavard,  Le  Celibat  des  Pretres, 
p.  314-5. — Davanzati,  Bishop  of  Can- 
osa,  was  also  in  favor  of  abrogating  the 
rule  of  celibacy. 

2  This  view  of  the  competence  of  the 
temporal  power  to  regulate  the  question 
seems  to  have  been  widely  received  at 
this  period.  An  anonymous  work  pub¬ 


lished  in  1769  under  the  title  of  “  Re- 
cherches  sur  l’Etat  Monastique  et  Eccle- 
siastique,”  written  by  a  good  Catholic, 
asserts  (p.  204),  “Si  le  cas  de  donner 
des  citoyens  a  la  patrie  devenoit  urgent, 
le  legislateur,  en  autorisant  le  mariage 
des  pretres,  n’entreprendroit  rien  sur  le 
sacrement  de  l’Ordre.” 


584 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


of  the  learned  work  of  Calixtus,  “  De  Conjugio  Clericorum,”  as  the 
most  efficient  aid  to  the  good  cause.  It  is  a  striking  illustration  of 
the  temper  of  the  times  to  observe  that  this  work,  so  bitterly  opposed 
to  the  orthodox  doctrines  and  practice,  is  dedicated  by  Henke  to 
Archdeacon  Anthony  Ganoczy,  canon  of  the  cathedral  church  of 
Gross -Wardein  and  apostolic  prothonotary.  The  hope  of  success 
brought  out  other  writers,  and  the  movement  made  sufficient  progress 
to  cause  some  hesitation  in  Rome  as  to  the  propriety  of  yielding  to 
the  pressure.1 

Zaccaria  again  entered  the  lists,  and  produced,  in  1785,  his  “Nuova 
Giustificazione  del  Celibato  Sacro,”  in  answer  to  the  Abbe  Gaudin 
and  to  an  anonymous  German  writer  whose  work  had  produced  con¬ 
siderable  sensation.  To  this  he  was  principally  moved  by  a  report 
that  he  had  himself  been  converted  by  the  facts  and  arguments  ad¬ 
vanced  by  the  German,  an  imputation  which  he  indignantly  refuted 
in  three  hundred  quarto  pages. 

The  half-formed  resolutions  of  Joseph  II.  led  to  no  result,  and  the 
subject  slumbered  for  a  few  years  until  the  outbreak  of  the  French 
Revolution.  At  an  early  period  in  that  great  movement,  the  adver¬ 
saries  of  sacerdotal  asceticism  bestirred  themselves  in  bringing  to 
public  attention  the  evils  and  cruelty  of  the  system.  Already,  in 
1789,  a  mass  of  pamphlets  appeared  urging  the  abrogation  of  celi¬ 
bacy.  In  1790  the  work  of  the  Abbe  Gaudin  was  reprinted,  and 
was  promptly  answered  by  the  prolific  Maultrot.  Even  in  Germany 
the  same  spirit  again  awoke,  and  an  Hungarian  priest  named  Katz 
published  at  Vienna,  in  1791,  a  “  Tractatus  de  conjugio  et  coelibatu 
clericorum,”  in  which  he  argued  strongly  for  a  change.  In  Poland 
these  doctrines  made  considerable  progress,  for  in  1801  vre  find  a 
little  tract  issued  at  W arsaw  vehemently  arguing  against  those  who 
imperii  their  souls  by  violating  their  vows  and  the  law’s  of  the  church.2 
In  England,  a  Catholic  priest  distinguished  for  talents  and  learning, 
Dr.  Geddes,  published,  in  1800,  a  work  in  which  he  denied  the 
Apostolic  origin  of  celibacy  and  urged  that,  at  most,  it  should  only 


1  Zaccaria,  in  the  introduction  to  his 
“  Nuova  Giustificazione”  (p.  ix.))  de¬ 
nies  that  the  papal  court  entertained 
any  idea  of  making  the  concession ; 
but,  in  considering  the  question  as  to 
the  power  or  duty  of  the  pope  to  alter 
the  law  of  celibacy  (Diss.  iv.  cap.  6), 
his  remarks  show  clearly  that  the  sub¬ 
ject  was  discussed  in  a  tone  to  afford 


the  partisans  of  marriage  reasonable 
grounds  for  hope.  Among  the  threat¬ 
ening  proceedings  of  the  emperor  was 
the  suppression  of  no  less  than  184 
monasteries  (Lecky,  Hist,  of  Ration¬ 
alism,  chap.  vi.). 

2  Vetus  et  Constans  in  Ecclesia  Cath- 
olica  de  Sacerdotum  Coelibatu  Doctrina. 
Varsavise,  1801. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  CORRUPTION. 


585 


be  punished  by  degradation  from  the  priesthood,  without  entailing 
disgrace.  Indeed,  he  argued  that  the  rule  caused  more  proselytes  to 
Protestantism  than  any  other  cause.1 

During  this  period  it  can  hardly  be  supposed  that  the  defiant 
immorality  which  characterized  the  eighteenth  century  had  been 
favorable  to  the  purity  of  a  celibate  priesthood.  That  the  church, 
indeed,  had  made  but  scanty  improvement  in  the  character  of  its 
ministers  is  visible  throughout  the  literature  of  the  age,  and  I  need 
only  allude  to  a  few  instances  where  efforts  at  reform  revealed  the 
prevailing  corruption. 

In  France  the  attacks  upon  the  vow  of  celibacy,  to  which  allusion 
has  already  been  made,  seem  to  have  given  rise  to  a  spasmodic  attempt 
to  regulate  the  church.  In  1760  an  arret  of  the  Parlement  of  Paris 
prohibited  the  organization  of  religious  congregations  without  express 
royal  permission,  verified  by  that  body.  The  assembly  of  the  clergy 
in  Paris  in  1766  produced  no  notable  improvement,  nor  was  greater 
success  obtained  when  the  temporal  power  intervened  in  the  Edicts 
of  1766  and  1767.  Further  effort  apparently  was  requisite,  and  in 
the  Edict  of  March,  1768,  Louis  XY.  undertook  to  diminish  in  some 
degree  the  causes  of  the  more  flagrant  disorders  among  the  regular 
clergy.  Men  were  not  to  be  allowed  to  take  the  vows  under  the  age 
of  22,  nor  women  under  19 ;  and  as  the  smaller  religious  houses  were 
especially  notorious  for  laxness  of  discipline,  all  were  suppressed 
which  could  not  number  at  least  fifteen  professed  monks  or  nuns, 
except  those  attached  to  larger  congregations.  The  ecclesiastical 
authorities,  moreover,  were  emphatically  commanded  to  make  a  thor¬ 
ough  visitation,  and  to  compel  the  observance  of  the  rules  of  disci¬ 
pline  of  the  several  orders.2  The  enforcement  of  this  edict  created 
no  little  excitement,  and  several  of  the  smaller  orders  narrowly  es¬ 
caped  destruction  in  their  endeavors  to  evade  its  provisions.  That 
these  efforts  did  not  succeed  in  accomplishing  their  object  we  may 
well  believe,  even  without  the  testimony  of  an  eye-witness.3  As  for 


1  ££  A  Modest  Apology  for  the  Cath¬ 
olics  of  Great  Britain,  ”  published 
anonymously  in  1800 — a  work  singu¬ 
larly  moderate  and  candid  in  its  tone. 
Dr.  Geddes  had  been  suspended  from  his 
functions  in  consequence  of  a  transla¬ 
tion  of  the  Bible  which  he  had  pub¬ 
lished.  See  Allibone’s  Dictionary,  I. 
657. 


2  Dupin,  Manuel  du  Droit  Pub.  Ec- 
cles.  Erangais.  4e  Ed.  Paris,  1845,  p. 
274. — Edit  de  Mars  1768,  concernant 
les  Ordres  Religieux  (Isambert,  XXIII. 
476). 

3  See  Lastevrie’s  Hist,  of  Auricular 
Confession,  translated  by  Cocks,  Lon¬ 
don,  1848,  Book  ii.  chap,  iv.,  vi. 


586 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


the  secular  clergy,  when  Louis  XV.  amused  himself  by  ordering  the 
arrest  of  all  ecclesiastics  caught  frequenting  brothels,  the  number 
of  victims  in  a  short  time  amounted  to  296,  of  whom  no  less  than 
100  were  priests  actively  engaged  in  the  service  of  the  altar.1 

"When  the  Grand-Duke  Leopold  of  Tuscany  undertook  to  reform 
the  monasteries  of  his  dominions  and  to  put  an  end,  if  possible,  to 
the  abuse  of  the  confessional,  it  led  to  a  long  diplomatic  correspond¬ 
ence  with  the  papal  curia  as  to  the  jurisdiction  over  such  cases. 
A  public  document  of  the  year  1763  had  already  stated  that  the 
special  crime  in  question  had  become  less  frequent,  and  attributed 
this  improvement  to  the  exceeding  laxity  of  morals  everywhere 
prevalent,  for  few  confessors  could  be  so  foolish  as  to  attempt  seduc¬ 
tion  in  the  confessional  when  there  was  so  little  risk  in  doing  the 
same  thing  elsewhere.2  Specious  as  this  reasoning  might  seem,  the 
facts  on  which  it  was  based  were  hardly  borne  out  by  the  investiga¬ 
tions  of  Leopold  shortly  after  into  the  morals  of  the  monastic  estab¬ 
lishments.  Nothing  more  scandalous  is  to  be  found  in  the  visitations 
of  the  religious  houses  of  England  under  Morton  and  Cromwell. 
The  spiritual  directors  of  the  nunneries  had  converted  them  virtually 
into  harems,  and  such  of  the  sisters  as  were  proof  against  seduction 
armed  with  the  powers  of  confession  and  absolution  suffered  every 
species  of  persecution.  It  was  rare  for  them  to  venture  on  complaint, 
but  when  they  did  so  they  received  no  attention  from  their  ecclesi¬ 
astical  superiors,  and  only  the  protection  of  the  grand-ducal  authority 
at  length  emboldened  them  to  reveal  the  truth.  The  prioress  of  S. 
Caterina  di  Pistoia  declared  that,  with  three  or  four  exceptions,  all 
the  monks  and  confessors  with  whom  she  had  met  in  her  long  career 
were  alike ;  that  they  treated  the  nuns  as  wives,  and  taught  them 
that  God  had  made  man  for  woman  and  woman  for  man  ;  and  that 
the  visitations  of  the  bishops  amounted  to  naught,  even  though  they 
were  aware  of  what  occurred,  for  the  mouths  of  the  victims  were 
sealed  by  the  dread  of  excommunication  threatened  by  their  spiritual 
directors.3  When  it  is  considered  that  the  convents  thus  converted 
into  dens  of  prostitution  were  the  favorite  schools  to  which  the  girls 
of  the  higher  classes  were  sent  for  training  and  education,  it  can 
readily  be  imagined  what  were  the  moral  influences  thence  radiating 


1  Bouvet,  De  la  Confession  et  du 
Celibat  des  Pretres,  Paris,  1845,  p.  504. 

2  Archives  of  Florence — Segreterio 


di  Stato  nella  Regfrenza,  Filza  194 


3  De  Potter,  Memoires  de  Scipion 
de’  Ricci,  I.  284  sqq. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  CORRUPTION. 


587 


throughout  society  at  large,  and  we  can  appreciate  the  argument 
above  referred  to,  as  to  the  ease  with  which  the  clergy  could  procure 
sexual  indulgence  without  recourse  to  the  confessional.  Leopold’s 
chief  assistant  in  this  struggle  was  Scipione  de’  Ricci,  Bishop  of 
Pistoia  and  Prato,  whose  experiences  in  the  investigation  caused  him 
to  induce  the  council  of  Pistoia,  in  1786,  to  declare  the  duties  of  the 
confessional  wholly  incompatible  with  the  monastic  state,  and,  in 
view  of  the  improbability  of  any  permanent  reform,  to  propose  the 
abolition  of  the  monastic  orders  by  restricting  vows  to  the  duration 
of  a  twelvemonth1 — propositions  which  were  not  approved  by  the 
congregation  of  Tuscan  prelates  held  at  Florence  in  1787,  and  which 
were  scornfully  condemned  by  Rome.2  Leopold,  however,  sought  to 
palliate  the  evil  by  raising  to  the  age  of  24  the  minimum  limit  for 
taking  the  vows,  which  the  council  of  Trent  had  fixed  at  16,  but 
the  benefit  of  this  salutary  measure  was  neutralized  by  the  ease  with 
which  parents  desiring  to  get  rid  of  their  children  could  place  them 
in  the  institutions  of  the  neighboring  states,  such  as  Lucca  and 
Modena.3 

Rome  itself  was  no  better  than  its  dependent  provinces,  despite 
the  high  personal  character  of  some  of  the  pontiffs.  When  the  too 
early  death  of  Clement  XIV.,  in  1774,  cut  short  the  hopes  which 
had  been  excited  by  his  enlightened  rule,  St.  Alphonso  Liguori 
addressed  to  the  conclave  assembled  for  the  election  of  his  successor 
a  letter  urging  them  to  make  such  a  choice  as  would  afford  reasonable 
prospect  of  accomplishing  the  much-needed  reform.  The  saint  did 
not  hesitate  to  characterize  the  discipline  of  the  secular  clergy  as 
most  grievously  lax,  and  to  proclaim  that  a  general  reform  of  the 
ecclesiastical  body  was  the  only  way  to  remove  the  fearful  corruption 
of  the  morals  of  the  laity.4  When  we  hear,  about  this  time,  of  two 
Carmelite  convents  at  Rome,  one  male  and  the  other  female,  which 
had  to  be  pulled  down  because  underground  passages  had  been  estab¬ 
lished  between  them,  by  means  of  which  the  monks  and  nuns  lived 
in  indiscriminate  licentiousness,  and  when  we  read  the  scandalous 
stories  which  were  current  in  Roman  society  about  prelates  high  in 


1  Atti  e  Decreti  del  Concilio  di  Pis- 
toja  dell’  anno  1786,  Pistoja,  4to.  pp. 
237,  239. 

2  Acta  Congr.  Archiep.  et  Episc. 

Hetrnriae  Sess.  xvm.  (Bambergse 

1790,  T.  I.  p.  453). — Bull.  Auctorem 
fidei  ann.  1794  \  \  80-84. 


3  Chiesi  (Rivista  Cristiana,  Die.  1876 
p.  470). — Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxv. 
De  Reg.  et  Mon.  cap.  xv. 

4  Panzini,  Confessione  di  un  Pri- 
gioniero,  p.  333. 


588 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


the  church,  we  can  readily  appreciate  the  denunciations  of  St.  Al- 
phonso.1  A  curious  glimpse  at  the  interior  of  conventual  life  is 
furnished  by  a  manual  for  Inquisitors,  written  about  this  period  by 
an  official  of  the  Holy  Office  of  Home.  In  a  chapter  on  nuns  he 
describes  the  scandals  which  often  cause  them  to  fall  within  the  juris¬ 
diction  of  the  Inquisition,  and  prescribes  the  course  to  be  pursued 
with  regard  to  the  several  offences.  Among  those  who  were  forced 
to  take  the  veil,  despair  frequently  led  to  the  denial  of  God,  of 
heaven,  and  of  hell ;  feminine  enmity  caused  accusations  of  sorcery 
and  witchcraft,  which  threw  not  only  the  nunneries,  but  whole  cities, 
into  confusion;  vain-glory  of  sanctity  suggested  pretended  revelations 
and  visions ;  and  these  latter  were  also  not  infrequently  caused  by 
licentiousness,  for  in  these  utterances  were  sometimes  taught  doctrines 
utterly  subversive  of  morality,  of  'which  Godless  confessors  took  ad¬ 
vantage  to  teach  their  spiritual  daughters  that  there  wms  no  sin  in 
sexual  intercourse.  As  in  Spain,  it  was  the  practice  of  the  Roman 
Inquisition  to  treat  the  offenders  mildly,  partly  in  consideration  of 
the  temptations  to  which  they  were  exposed,  and  partly  to  avoid 
scandal.2  The  contaminating  influence  on  society  at  large,  ema¬ 
nating  from  a  church  so  incurably  corrupted,  Tvas  vastly  heightened 
by  the  overgrown  numbers  of  the  clerical  body.  In  1775,  for  ex¬ 
ample,  a  census  of  the  terra-firma  provinces  of  Venice  showed  in 
that  narrow  territory  no  less  than  45,773  priests,  or  one  to  every 
fifty  inhabitants,  while  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  exclusive  of  Sicily, 
there  were,  in  1769,  one  to  every  seventy-six.3  Such  overcrowding 
as  this  was  not  only  in  itself  an  efficient  cause  of  disorder,  but 
intensified  incalculably  the  power  of  infection. 

The  virtues  of  the  clergy,  therefore,  could  offer  but  a  feeble  bar¬ 
rier  to  the  spirit  of  innovation  when  the  passions  of  the  French 
Revolution  were  brought  to  bear  upon  the  immunities  and  distinctive 
laws  of  the  church.  The  attack  commenced  on  that  wThich  had  been 
the  strength,  but  which  was  now  the  weakness,  of  the  ecclesiastical 
establishment.  As  early  as  the  10th  of  August,  1789,  preliminary 
steps  were  taken  in  the  National  Assembly  to  appropriate  the  prop¬ 
erty  of  the  church  to  meet  the  fearful  deficit  which  had  been  the 


1  Vie  de  Scipion  de’  Ricci  I.  239  :  II. 
373  sqq. 

2  Prattica  del  Modo  da  procedersi 
nelle  cause  del  S.  Offitio  cap.  xxv. 

(MS.  Bibl.  llee:.  Monacens.  Cod.  Ital. 
698). 


3  Esaminatore,  Firenze,  Ap.  15th, 
1867,  p.  100.  In  Spain,  an  official  re¬ 
turn  made  in  1764  estimated  the  number 
of  ecclesiastics,  regular  and  secular,  at 
281,160  souls  (Castillo  y  Mayone,  His- 
toria  de  los  Frailes,  III.  144). 


REVOLUTIONARY  MEASURES. 


589 


efficient  cause  of  calling  together  the  high  council  of  the  nation. 
This  property  was  estimated  as  covering  one-fifth  of  the  surface  of 
France,  yielding  with  the  tithes  an  annual  revenue  of  three  hundred 
millions  of  francs.  So  vast  an  amount  of  wealth,  perverted  for  the 
most  part  from  its  legitimate  purposes,  offered  an  irresistible  tempta¬ 
tion  to  desperate  financiers,  and  yet  it  was  a  prelate  who  made  the 
first  direct  attack  upon  it.  On  the  10th  of  October,  1789,  Talley¬ 
rand,  then  Bishop  of  Autun,  introduced  a  motion  to  the  effect  that 
it  should  be  devoted  to  the  national  wants,  subject  to  the  proper  and 
necessary  expenses  for  public  worship ;  and  on  the  2d  of  November 
the  measure  was  adopted  by  a  vote  of  568  to  346.  This  settled  the 
principle,  though  the  details  of  a  transaction  of  such  magnitude  were 
only  perfected  by  successive  acts  during  the  two  following  years.  One 
of  the  earliest  results  was  the  secularization  of  those  ecclesiastics 
whose  labors  did  not  entitle  them  to  support,  a  preliminary  necessary 
to  the  intended  appropriation  of  their  princely  revenues.  This  was 
accomplished  by  an  act  of  February  13th,  1790,  by  which  the  re¬ 
ligious  orders  were  suppressed,  monastic  vows  were  declared  void, 
and  a  moderate  annuity  accorded  to  the  unfortunates  thus  turned 
adrift  upon  the  world. 

The  great  body  of  the  parochial  clergy,  patriotic  in  their  aspira¬ 
tions,  and  suffering  from  the  abuses  of  power,  had  hailed  the  advent 

of  the  Revolution  with  joy;  and  their  assistance  had  been  invaluable 

/ 

in  rendering  the  Tiers-Etat  supreme  in  the  National  Assembly.  These 
measures,  however,  assailing  their  dearest  interests  and  privileges, 
aroused  them  to  a  sense  of  the  true  tendency  of  the  movement  to 
which  they  had  contributed  so  powerfully.  A  breach  was  inevitable 
between  them  and  the  partisans  of  progress.  Every  forward  step 
embittered  the  quarrel.  It  was  impossible  for  the  one  party  to  stay 
its  course,  or  for  the  other  to  assent  to  acts  which  daily  became  more 
menacing  and  revolutionary.  Forced,  therefore,  into  the  position  of 
reactionaries,  the  clergy  ere  long  became  objects  of  suspicion  and 
soon  after  of  persecution.  The  progressives  devised  a  test-oath, 
obligatory  on  all  ecclesiastics,  which  should  divide  those  who  were 
loyal  to  the  Revolution  from  the  contumacious,  and  lists  were  kept 
of  both  classes.1  Harmless  as  the  oath  was  in  appearance,  when  it 


1  “D’etre  fidele  a  la  nation,  a  la  loi, 
an  roi,  et  del  veiler  exactement  sur  le 
troupeau  confie  a  leurs  soins.”  It  was 
not  only  the  objections  of  the  king  and 
of  the  pope  that  rendered  this  oath 
unpalatable,  but  also  the  fact  that  it 


gave  adhesion  to  the  law  for  the  secu¬ 
larization  of  ecclesiastical  property  and 
of  the  monastic  orders.  It  was  ordered 
in  the  Constihdion  civile  du  Clergt,  Tit. 
ir.  Art.  21,  38,  adopted  July  12  and 
promulgated  Aug.  24,  1790. 


590 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


was  tendered,  in  December,  1790,  five-sixths  of  the  clergy  throughout 
the  kingdom  refused  it.  Those  who  yielded  to  the  pressure  were 
termed  assermentes ,  the  recusants  insermentes  or  refractaires ,  and 
the  latter,  of  course,  at  once  became  the  determined  opponents  of 
the  new  regime,  the  more  dangerous  because  they  were  the  only 
influential  partisans  of  reaction  belonging  to  the  people.  To  their 
efforts  were  attributed  the  insurrections  which  in  La  Vendee  and 
elsewhere  threatened  the  most  fearful  dangers.  They  were  accord¬ 
ingly  exposed  to  severe  legislation.  A  decree  of  November  29, 1791, 
deprived  them  of  their  stipends  and  suspended  their  functions ;  an¬ 
other  of  May  27,  1792,  authorized  the  local  authorities  to  exile  them 
on  the  simple  denunciation  of  twenty  citizens.  Under  the  Terror 
their  persons  were  exposed  to  flagrant  cruelties,  and  a  pretre  refrac- 
taire  was  generally  regarded,  ipso  facto ,  as  an  enemy  to  the  Republic. 

Under  these  circumstances,  sacerdotal  marriage  came  to  be  looked 
upon  as  a  powerful  lever  to  disarm  or  overthrow  the  hostility  of  the 
church,  and  also  as  a  test  of  loyalty  or  disloyalty.  Yet  the  steps  by 
which  this  conclusion  was  reached  were  very  gradual.  In  the  early 
stages  of  the  Revolution,  while  it  was  still  fondly  deemed  that  the 
existing  institutions  of  France  could  be  purified  and  preserved,  the 
National  Assembly  was  assailed  with  petitions  asking  that  the  privi¬ 
lege  of  marriage  should  be  extended  to  the  clergy.1  These  met  with 
no  response,  even  after  the  suppression  of  the  monastic  orders.  As 
late  as  September,  1790,  when  the  Abbe  Professor  Command,  of  the 
College  de  France,  made  a  motion  in  favor  of  sacerdotal  marriage  in 
the  assembly  of  the  district  of  St.  Etienne  du  Mont  in  Paris,  the 
question,  after  considerable  debate,  was  laid  aside  as  beyond  the  com¬ 
petence  of  that  body.  It  was  not  until  September  3d,  1791,  that 
Mirabeau  introduced  into  the  Assembly  a  decree  providing  that  no 
profession  or  vocation  should  debar  a  citizen  from  marriage  or  be 
considered  as  incompatible  with  marriage,  and  forbidding  the  public 
officials  and  notaries  from  refusing  to  ratify  any  marriage  contract 
on  such  pretext.  Though  no  allusion  was  made  in  this  to  ecclesi¬ 
astics,  its  object  was  evident,  and  was  so  admitted  in  the  eloquent 


1  I  have  before  me  one  of  the  pamph¬ 
lets  issued  about  this  time  (Le  Mariage 
des  Pretres,  Paris,  Laclaye,  1700,  8vo. 
pp.  102),  addressed  to  the  Assembly. 
It  is  a  tolerably  calm  and  well-reasoned 
argument,  basing  its  demand  upon  the 
usages  of  the  primitive  church,  the 


precepts  of  Scripture,  the  rights  of 
nature,  and  public  utility.  The  author 
asserts  himself  to  be  a  priest  well  ad¬ 
vanced  in  life,  and  he  assumes  that  the 
corruption  of  society  disseminated  by 
the  licentiousness  of  ecclesiastics  is 
generally  recognized  and  understood. 


CLERICAL  MARRIAGE  LEGALIZED. 


591 


speech  with  which  he  urged  its  adoption — a  speech  which  contained 
a  very  telling  resume  of  the  arguments  in  favor  of  priestly  marriage, 
hut  which,  in  its  glowing  anticipations  of  the  benefits  to  be  expected 
from  the  measure,  affords  a  somewhat  lamentable  contrast  to  the 
meagreness  of  the  realization.1  The  principle,  when  once  established, 
was  considered  of  sufficient  importance  to  deserve  recognition  in  the 
Constitution  of  September,  1791,  a  section  in  the  preamble  of  which 
declares  that  the  law  does  not  recognize  religious  vows  or  any  en¬ 
gagements  contrary  to  the  rights  of  nature  or  to  the  constitution,2 
and  this  was  followed,  as  Mirabeau  had  proposed,  by  a  decree  of 
September  20,  1791,  which,  in  enumerating  the  obstacles  to  mar¬ 
riage,  does  not  allude  to  monastic  vows  or  holy  orders. 

Professor  Command  was  probably  the  first  man  of  position  and 
character  to  take  advantage  of  the  privilege  thus  permitted,  and  his 
example  was  followed  by  many  ecclesiastics  who  had  won  an  honor¬ 
able  place  in  the  church,  in  literature,  and  in  science.  Among  them 
may  be  mentioned  the  Abbe  Gaudin  of  the  Oratoire,  the  author  of 
a  work  already  alluded  to  on  the  evils  of  celibacy,  who  in  1792  rep¬ 
resented  La  Vendee  in  the  Legislative  Assembly,  and  who  in  1805 
did  not  hesitate  to  publish  a  little  volume  entitled  “Avis  a  mon  fils, 
age  de  sept  ans” — although,  in  the  preface  to  his  work  in  1781,  he 
had  described  himself  as  long  past  the  age  of  the  passions.  Even 
bishops  yielded  to  the  temptation.  Lomenie,  coadjutor  of  his  uncle 
the  Archbishop  of  Sens,  Torne  Bishop  of  Bourges,  Massieu  of  Beau¬ 
vais,  and  Lindet  of  Evreux  were  publicly  married.  Many  nuptials 
of  this  kind  were  celebrated  with  an  air  of  defiance.  Pastors  an¬ 
nounced  their  approaching  weddings  to  their  flocks  in  florid  rhetoric, 
as  though  assured  of  finding  sympathy  for  the  assertion  of  the  tri¬ 
umph  of  nature  over  the  tyranny  of  man.  Others  presented  them¬ 
selves  with  their  brides  at  the  bar  of  the  National  Convention,  as 
though  to  demonstrate  that  they  were  good  citizens,  who  had  thrown 
off  all  reverence  for  the  obsolete  traditions  of  the  past. 

A  nation  maddened  and  torn  by  the  extremes  of  hope,  of  rage, 
and  of  terror,  which  met  the  triumphal  march  of  three  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  hostile  bayonets  with  the  heads  of  its  king  and  queen, 
which  blazoned  forth  to  Europe  its  irrevocable  breach  with  the  past 


1  This  speech  is  printed  in  full  from 
a  MS.  in  the  public  library  of  Geneva, 
by  the  Abbe  Chavard  (Le  Celibat  des 
Pretres,  pp.  483-500). 


2  La  loi  ne  reconnait  ni  vceux  reli- 
gieux,  ni  aucun  autre  engagement  qui 
serait  contraire  aux  droits  naturels  ou  a 
la  constitution. 


592 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


by  instituting  festivals  in  honor  of  a  new  Supretne  Being  and  pa¬ 
rading  a  courtesan  through  the  streets  of  Paris  as  the  Goddess  of 
Reason,  was  not  likely  to  employ  much  tenderness  in  coercing  its 
internal  enemies ;  and  chief  among  these  it  finally  numbered  the 
ministers  of  religion.  To  them  it  soon  applied  the  marriage  test. 
To  marry  was  to  acknowledge  the  supremacy  of  the  civil  authority, 
and  to  sunder  allegiance  to  foreign  domination;  celibacy  was  at  the 
least  a  tacit  adherence  to  the  enemy,  and  a  mute  protest  against  the 
new  regime.  Matrimony,  therefore,  rose  into  importance  as  at  once 
a  test  and  a  pledge,  and  every  effort  was  made  to  encourage  it. 
Among  the  records  of  the  revolutionary  tribunal  is  the  trial  of 
Mahue,  Cure  of  S.  Sulpice,  Aug.  13,  1793,  accused  of  having 
written  a  pamphlet  against  priestly  marriage,  and  he  was  only  ac¬ 
quitted  on  the  ground  that  his  crime  had  been  committed  prior  to 
the  adoption  of  the  law  of  July  19,  1793. 1  A  decree  of  November 
19,  1793,  relieved  from  exile  or  imprisonment  all  priests  who  could 
show  that  their  banns  had  been  published,  and  when,  soon  afterwards, 
at  the  height  of  the  popular  frenzy,  the  Convention  sent  its  deputies 
throughout  France  with  instructions  to  crush  out  every  vestige  of 
the  dreaded  reaction,  those  emissaries  made  celibacy  the  object  of 
their  especial  attacks.  Thus,  in  the  Department  of  the  Meuse, 
deputy  De  la  Croix  announced  that  all  priests  who  were  not  married 
should  be  placed  under  surveillance ;  while  in  Savoy  the  harsh 
measures  taken  against  the  clergy  were  modified  in  favor  of  those 
who  married  by  permitting  them  to  remain  under  surveillance.  One 
zealous  deputy  ordered  a  pastor  to  be  imprisoned  until  he  could  find 
a  wife,  and  another  released  a  canon  from  jail  on  his  pledging  him¬ 
self  to  marry.  Many  of  those  thus  forced  into  matrimony  were 
decrepit  with  years,  and  chose  brides  whose  age  secured  them  from 
all  suspicions  of  yielding  to  the  temptations  of  the  flesh.  Such  was 
the  venerable  Martin  of  Marseilles,  who,  after  seeing  his  bishop  and 
two  priests,  his  intimate  friends,  led  to  the  scaffold,  took,  at  the  age 
of  76,  a  wife  nearly  60  years  old.  As  an  unfortunate  ecclesiastic, 
who  had  thus  succeeded  in  weathering  the  storm,  fairly  expressed  it, 
in  defending  himself  against  the  reproaches  of  a  returned  emigre 
bishop,  he  took  a  wife  to  serve  as  a  lightning  rod.  These  unwilling 
bridegrooms  not  infrequently  deposited  with  a  notary  or  a  trusty 
friend  a  protest  against  the  violence  to  which  they  had  yielded,  and 


1  Desmaze,  Penalites  Anciennes,  p.  222,  Paris,  1866. 


PERSECUTION  OF  CELIBACY. 


593 


a  declaration  that  their  relations  with  their  wives  should  be  merely 
those  of  brother  and  sister. 

Yet  in  this  curious  persecution  the  officials  only  obeyed  the  voice 
of  the  excited  people.  The  press,  the  stage,  all  the  organs  of  public 
opinion,  were  unanimous  in  warring  with  celibacy,  ridiculing  it  as  a 
fanatical  remnant  of  superstition,  and  denouncing  it  as  a  crime 
against  the  state.  The  popular  societies  were  especially  vehement 
in  promulgating  these  ideas.  The  Congres  fraternel  of  Ausch,  in 
September,  1793,  ordered  the  local  clubs  to  enlighten  the  benighted 
minds  of  the  populace  on  the  subject,  and  to  exclude  from  member¬ 
ship  all  priests  who  should  not  marry  within  six  months.  A  petition 
to  the  National  Assembly  from  the  republicans  of  Auxerre  demanded 
that  all  ecclesiastics  who  persisted  in  remaining  single  should  be 
banished ;  while  a  more  truculent  address  from  Condom  urged  im¬ 
periously  that  celibacy  should  be  declared  a  capital  crime,  and  that 
the  death-penalty  should  be  enforced  with  relentless  severity.  In 
times  so  terrible,  when  suspicion  was  conviction  and  conviction 
death,  and  when  such  were  the  views  of  those  who  swayed  public 
affairs,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  many  pious  churchmen,  un¬ 
ambitious  of  the  crown  of  martyrdom,  thought  matrimony  preferable 
to  the  guillotine  or  the  noyade. 

Indeed,  the  only  source  of  surprise  is  that  so  few  were  found  to 
betray  their  convictions.  In  the  vast  body  of  the  Gallican  church  it 
is  estimated  that  only  about  2000  marriages  of  men  in  orders  took 
place,  after  the  reign  of  terror  had  rendered  it  a  measure  of  safety. 
In  addition  to  this,  about  500  nuns  were  also  married ;  and  though 
this  proportion  is  larger,  it  is  still  singularly  small  when  we  consider 
that  these  poor  creatures,  utterly  unfitted  by  habit  or  education  to 
take  care  of  themselves,  were  suddenly  ejected  from  their  peaceful 
retreats,  and  cast  upon  a  world  which  was  raging  in  convulsions  so 
terrible.1 


1  I  have  not  found  it  easv  to  form  a 

V 

satisfactory  estimate  of  the  number  of 
French  ecclesiastics  previous  to  the 
Revolution.  Le  Bas  (Dictionnaire  En- 
cyclopedique  de  l’Histoire  de  France, 
V.  218)  gives  a  table,  showing  an  ag¬ 
gregate  of  418,206  souls,  of  whom 
235,147  may  he  considered  as  attached 
to  the  secular  service,  and  183,059  to 
the  regular  orders  and  canons.  Of  these 
latter,  100,451  were  men  and  82,608 
were  women.  On  the  other  hand,  M. 
Sauvestre  (Congregations  Religieuses, 


pp.  5,  6 )  quotes  from  the  Abbe  Expilly 
a  statement  that  in  1765  there  were 
79,000  monks  and  80,000  nuns ;  while 
he  shows  that  other  contemporary  au¬ 
thorities  reduce  the  number  of  members 
of  religious  orders  in  1789  to  52,000  of 
both  sexes.  M.  Charles  Chabot  ( En¬ 
cyclopedic  Monastique,  p.  x.,  Paris, 
1827)  computes,  after  elaborate  tabula¬ 
tion,  the  number  of  ecclesiastics,  regu¬ 
lar  and  secular,  at  407,753  persons, 
enjoying  a  revenue  of  127,610,576 
francs. 


38 


594 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


This  is  doubtless  attributable  to  the  steadfast  resistance  which  the 
better  part  of  the  clergy  made  to  the  innovation,  in  spite  of  the 
danger  of  withstanding  the  popular  frenzy,  and  in  disregard  of  the 
laws  which  denounced  such  opposition.  Even  the  assermentes ,  who 
had  pledged  themselves  to  the  Revolution  by  taking  the  oath  of 
allegiance,  were  mostly  unfavorable  to  the  abrogation  of  celibacy, 
and  the  position  thus  maintained  by  the  clergy  gave  tone  to  such  of 
the  people  as  retained  enough  of  devout  feeling  still  to  frequent  the 
churches  and  partake  of  the  mysteries  of  religion.  The  existence  of 
an  active  and  determined  opposition  is  revealed  by  an  act  of  August 
16th,  1792,  guaranteeing  the  salaries  of  all  married  priests,  thus 
showing  that,  in  some  places  at  least,  their  stipends  had  been  with¬ 
held.  Many  pastors,  indeed,  were  driven  from  their  parishes  by 
their  congregations,  in  consequence  of  marriage,  to  put  an  end  to 
W'hich  a  decree  of  September  17th,  1793,  ordered  the  communes  to 
continue  payment  of  salaries  in  all  such  cases  of  ejection. 

There  were  not  wanting  courageous  ecclesiastics  who  opposed  the 
innovation  by  every  means  in  their  power.  Although  Gobel,  Bishop 
of  Paris,  a  creature  of  the  Revolution,  favored  the  marriages  of  his 
clergy,  a  portion  of  his  curates  openly  and  vigorously  denounced 
them,  and  Gratien,  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  addressed  to  him  a  severe 
reproach  for  his  criminal  weakness.  The  same  Gratien  excommuni¬ 
cated  one  of  his  priests  for  marrying,  and  published,  July  24th,  1792, 
an  instruction  directed  especially  against  such  unions.  For  this  he 
wms  thrown  into  prison,  where  he  wras  long  confined.  Fauchet,  of 
Bayeux,  for  the  same  offence,  was  reported  to  the  Convention,  but 
was  fortunate  enough  to  elude  the  consequences.  Philibert,  of  Sedan, 
issued,  January  20th,  1793,  a  pastoral  in  which  he  more  cautiously 
argued  against  the  practice,  and,  after  a  long  persecution,  he  was 
lucky  to  escape  with  a  decree  of  costs  against  him.  Pastorals  to  the 
same  effect  were  also  promulgated  by  Clement  of  Versailles,  Heraudin 
of  Chateauroux,  Sanadon  of  Oleron,  Suzor  of  Tours,  and  others. 

The  Convention  was  not  disposed  to  tolerate  proceedings  such  as 
these.  To  put  a  stop  to  them,  it  adopted,  July  19th,  1793,  a  law 
punishing  with  deprivation  and  exile  all  bishops  who  interfered  in 
any  way  with  the  marriage  of  their  clergy.  For  a  while  this  appears 
to  have  put  a  stop  to  open  opposition,  but  when  the  reign  of  terror 
was  past,  and  the  Catholics  saw  a  prospect  of  reorganizing  the  dis¬ 
tracted  church,  one  of  their  earliest  efforts  was  directed  to  the  restora¬ 
tion  of  celibacy.  On  the  15th  of  March,  1795,  some  assermentes 


RESTORATION  OF  CELIBACY. 


595 


bishops,  members  of  the  Convention,  issued  from  Paris  an  encyclical 
letter  to  the  faithful,  in  which  they  denounced  sacerdotal  marriage  in 
the  strongest  terms.  Those  who  entered  into  such  unions  were  de¬ 
clared  unworthy  of  confidence ;  the  fearful  constraint  under  which 
they  had  sought  refuge  in  matrimony  was  pronounced  to  be  no  justi¬ 
fication,  and  even  renunciation  of  their  wives  was  not  admitted  as 
entitling  them  to  absolution  for  the  one  unpardonable  sin.1  In  a 
second  letter,  issued  December  15th  of  the  same  year,  this  denuncia¬ 
tion  wTas  repeated  in  even  stronger  terms. 

In  these  manifestoes  the  bishops  did  not  speak  by  authority.  They 
could  not  threaten  or  command,  for  they  were  acting  beyond  or  in 
opposition  to  the  law.  With  the  progress  of  reaction  they  became 
bolder.  In  1T9T  the  church  ventured  to  hold  a  national  council,  in 
which  it  forbade  the  nuptial  benediction  to  those  who  were  in  orders 
or  were  bound  by  monastic  vows,  thus  reducing  their  marriages  to 
the  mere  civil  contract,  and  depriving  them  of  all  the  sanction  of 
religion.  The  local  synods  which,  encouraged  by  the  fall  of  the 
Directory,  were  held  in  1800,  adopted  these  principles  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  took  measures  to  enforce  them.  That  of  Bourges  even 
prohibited  the  churching  of  women  who  were  wives  of  ecclesiastics. 

This  condemnation  of  the  married  clergy  carried  despair  and  deso¬ 
lation  into  the  households  of  those  who  had  offended,  and  upon  whom 
the  door  of  reconciliation  was  so  sternly  closed.  Gregoire  of  Blois, 
a  leading  actor  in  all  these  scenes,  records  the  innumerable  appeals 
received  from  the  unfortunates,  who,  torn  by  remorse  and  thus  re¬ 
pudiated  by  the  church,  begged  in  vain  for  the  mercy  which  was  in¬ 
compatible  with  the  respect  due  to  the  ancient  and  inviolable  canons. 

All  this,  however,  was  merely  local  action.  The  Gallican  church 
had  not  yet  been  reunited  to  Rome.  In  reconstructing  a  system  of 
social  order,  Napoleon  speedily  recognized  the  necessity  of  religion 
in  the  state,  and,  despite  the  opposition  of  those  who  still  believed 
in  the  Republic,  the  Concordat  of  1801  restored  France  to  its  place 
in  the  hierarchy  of  Latin  Christianity.  There  is  nothing  in  the 
Concordat  interfering  with  the  right  of  the  priest,  as  a  citizen,  to 
contract  marriage;  but  as,  in  all  affairs  purely  ecclesiastical,  the 
internal  regulation  and  discipline  of  the  church  were  necessarily  left 
to  itself,  the  rights  of  the  priest,  as  a  priest,  became  of  course  subject 
to  the  received  rules  of  the  church,  which  could  thus  refuse  the 


1  Lett.  Encyc.  15  Mars,  1795,  art.  lx.  (Gregoire,  p.  109). 


596 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


nuptial  benediction,  and  suspend  the  functions  of  any  one  contra¬ 
vening  its  canons.  In  consequence  of  the  power  thus  restored,  when 
the  question  soon  after  arose  as  to  the  legality  of  sacerdotal  marriages 
contracted  during  the  troubles,  the  Cardinal-legate  Caprara  issued 
rescripts  to  those  whose  unions  were  anterior  to  the  Concordat,  de¬ 
priving  them  of  their  priestly  character,  reducing  them  to  the  rank 
of  laymen,  and  empowering  the  proper  officials  to  absolve  them  and 
remarry  them  to  the  wives  whom  they  had  so  irregularly  wedded. 
This  created  a  strong  feeling  of  indignation  among  the  prelates  who 
had  carried  the  tabernacle  through  the  wilderness,  and  who,  while 
opposing  such  marriages  most  strenuously,  regarded  this  intervention 
of  papal  authority  as  a  direct  assault  upon  the  liberties  of  the  Gal- 
lican  church.  Their  time  was  past,  however,  and  their  denunciations 
of  this  duplication  of  the  sacrament  were  of  no  avail.  Yet  the  legality 
of  such  marriages,  and  the  unimpaired  right  of  priests  to  contract 
them,  were  asserted  and  proved  by  Portalis,  in  his  masterly  speech 
of  April  loth,  1802,  before  the  Corps  Legislatif,  advocating  the 
adoption  of  the  Concordat  as  a  law,  although  he  admitted  that  the 
duties  of  the  priesthood  and  the  feeling  of  the  people  rendered  sacer¬ 
dotal  celibacy  desirable.1 

Notwithstanding  the  authority  thus  restored  to  the  church,  and 
the  certainty  of  ecclesiastical  penalties  following  such  infraction  of 


1  This  speech  of  Portalis  plre  is  an 
admirable  commentary  on  the  Con¬ 
cordat,  developing  its  causes  and  con¬ 
sequences  with  a  rigidity  of  logic  and 
an  enlightened  spirit  of  faith  which 
are  equally  creditable  to  the  head 
and  heart  of  the  distinguished  orator. 
From  the  portion  devoted  to  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  marriage,  I  quote  the  following, 
as  embodying  a  clear  exposition  of  the 
intentions  of  those  who  negotiated  the 
Concordat. 

“Quelques  personnes  se  plaindront 
peut-etre  de  ce  que  l’on  n’a  pas  con¬ 
serve  le  mariage  des  pretres.  .  .  .  En 
effet,  d’une  part  nous  n’admettons  plus 
que  les  ministres  dont  l’existence  est 
necessaire  a  l’exercice  du  culte,  ce  qui 
diminue  considerablement  le  nombre 
des  personnes  qui  se  vouaient  ancienne- 
ment  au  celibat.  D ’autre  part,  pour 
les  ministres  memes  que  nous  conser- 
vons,  et  a  qui  le  celibat  est  ordonne 
par  les  reglements  ecclesiastiques,  la 
defense  qui  leur  est  faite  du  mariage 
par  ces  reglements  n’est  point  con- 


sacree  comme  empechement  dirimant 
dans  l’ordre  civil :  ainsi  leur  mariage, 
s’ils  en  contractaient  un,  ne  serait 
point  nul  aux  yeux  des  lois  politiques 
et  civiles,  et  les  enfans  qui  en  nai- 
traient  seraient  legitimes ;  mais  dans 
le  for  interieur  et  dans  l’ordre  religieux, 
ils  s’exposeraient  aux  peines  spirituelles 
prononcees  par  les  lois  canoniques : 
ils  continueraient  a  jouir  de  leurs  droits 
de  famille  et  de  cit£,  mais  ils  seraient 
tenus  de  s’abstenir  de  l’exercice  du 
sacerdoce.  Cons^quemment,  sans  affai- 
blir  le  nerf  de  la  discipline  de  l’^glise, 
on  conserve  aux  individus  toute  la 
liberte  et  tous  les  avantages  garantis 
par  les  lois  de  l’etat ;  mais  il  eut  6t6 
injuste  d’aller  plus  loin,  et  d’exiger 
pour  les  ecclesiastiques  de  France, 
comme  tels,  une  exception  qui  les  eut 
deconsideres  aupres  de  tous  les  peuples 
Catholiques,  et  aupres  des  Fran^ais 
memes,  auxquels  ils  administreraient 
les  secours  de  la  religion  ”  (Dupin, 
Manuel  du  Droit  Public  Eccl^s.  Fran¬ 
cis,  4eme  6d.  pp.  196-8). 


VARYING  POLICY  OF  THE  STATE. 


597 


the  Tridentine  articles  of  faith,  the  practice  which  had  been  intro¬ 
duced  could  not  be  immediately  eradicated.  Priests  were  constantly 
contracting  marriage,  and  the  question  gave  considerable  trouble  to 
the  government,  which  hesitated  for  some  time  as  to  the  policy  to  he 
pursued.  Portalis,  in  1802,  as  we  have  seen,  declared  the  full  legality 
of  such  marriages,  and  the  unimpaired  right  of  ecclesiastics  to  con¬ 
tract  them;  and  the  provisions  of  the  code  respecting  marriage, 
adopted  in  1803,  make  no  allusions  to  vows  or  religious  engagements 
as  causing  incapacity.1  Yet  in  1805,  when  Daviaux,  Archbishop  of 
Bordeaux,  opposed  the  application  of  a  priest  named  Boisset  to  the 
civil  authorities  for  a  marriage  contract,  Portalis,  then  minister  of 
religious  affairs,  on  being  appealed  to,  replied  that  the  government 
would  not  allow  its  officers  to  register  such  contracts.  The  local  ad¬ 
ministrations  sometimes  assented  to  such  applications  and  sometimes 
referred  them  to  the  central  authority,  until  at  length,  in  1807,  a 
definite  conclusion  was  promulgated.  This  was  to  the  effect  that 
although  the  civil  law  was  silent  as  regards  such  marriages,  yet  they 
were  condemned  by  public  opinion.  The  government  considered 
them  fraught  with  danger  to  the  peace  of  families,  as  the  powerful 
influence  of  the  pastor  could  be  perverted  to  evil  purposes,  and,  if 
seduction  could  be  followed  by  marriage,  that  influence  would  be 
liable  to  great  abuse.  The  emperor  therefore  declared  that  he  could 
not  tolerate  marriage  on  the  part  of  those  who  had  exercised  priestly 
functions  since  the  date  of  the  Concordat.  As  for  those  who  had 
abandoned  the  ministry  previous  to  that  period  and  had  not  since 
resumed  it,  he  left  them  to  their  own  consciences.  Thus,  in  practice, 
although  marriage  was  regarded  as  purely  a  civil  institution,  a  limita¬ 
tion  was  introduced  which  was  not  authorized  by  the  code,  which 
rested  solely  upon  the  authority  of  the  emperor,  and  which,  far  from 
indicating  respect  to  the  church,  was  a  flagrant  insult.  As  Napoleon 
withdrew  himself  more  and  more  from  the  principles  of  the  new  order 
of  things,  we  find  him  disposed  to  take  even  stronger  ground  in  oppo¬ 
sition  to  the  civil  privileges  accorded  to  the  priesthood  by  the  Con¬ 
cordat.  The  question  of  sacerdotal  marriage  continued  to  present 
itself  under  perplexing  shapes,  and  at  length  the  emperor,  on  the 
eve  of  his  downfall,  perhaps  with  a  view  to  propitiate  the  sacerdotal 
power,  proposed  to  apply  to  married  priests  the  penalty  imposed  by 


1  Code  Civil,  Liv.  i.  Tit.  v. 


598 


THE  CHURCH  AND  THE  REVOLUTION. 


the  law  on  bigamy.1  It  was  too  late,  however ;  the  empire  was 
rapidly  vanishing,  and  these  suggestions  were  soon  forgotten  in  the 
hurrying  march  of  events.2 


1  In  an  address  to  the  Council  of 
State,  Dec.  20th,  1813,  Napoleon  said, 
“  Le  sacerdoce  est  une  sorte  de  mariage ; 
le  pretre  etant  uni  a  l’eglise  comme 
l’dpoux  a  son  Spouse,  il  n’y  aurait  au- 
cun  inconvenient  a  appliquer  au  pretre 
qui  se  marierait  la  peine  de  la  bigamie : 
un  tel  ecclesiastique  ne  merite  aucun 
sorte  de  consideration” — Bouhier  de 
l’Ecluse,  del’Etatdes  Pretres  en  France, 
Paris,  1842,  p.  17. — Chavard  (Le  Celi- 
bat  des  Pretres,  pp.  409-10)  quotes 
Dean  Stanley  as  asserting,  on  the  au¬ 
thority  of  the  elder  Due  de  Broglie, 
that  Pius  VIII.  spontaneously  offered 
to  Napoleon  to  permit  sacerdotal  mar¬ 
riage,  but  that  the  Emperor  declined 
the  proposal.  I  cannot  but  think, 
however,  that  there  must  be  some  mis¬ 
take  in  this  statement. 

2  For  many  of  the  above  details  I 
am  indebted  to  the  curious  but  ill- 
digested  little  work — “  Histoire  du 
Mariage  des  Pretres  en  France,”  pub¬ 
lished  by  Gregoire  in  1826.  Gregoire, 
though  a  priest  of  the  ancien  regime, 
was  a  sincere  and  consistent  republi¬ 
can.  A  member  of  the  States  Gene¬ 
ral,  of  the  Convention,  and  of  the 
Council  of  Five  Hundred,  elected 
Bishop  of  Blois  by  the  voice  of  a  people 
who  knew  and  respected  him,  he  pre¬ 
served  his  ardent  faith  through  all  the 
excesses  of  the  Revolution,  and  his 
democratic  ideas  in  spite  of  the  injuries 
inflicted  on  his  class  in  the  name  of  the 
people.  The  sincerity  and  boldness  of 
his  character  may  be  estimated  by  a 


single  example.  When,  on  the  7th  of 
November,  1793,  Gobel,  Bishop  of 
Paris,  appeared  before  the  Convention 
with  twelve  of  his  vicars  and  publicly 
renounced  his  sacred  functions  on  the 
ground  that  hereafter  there  should  be 
no  other  worship  than  that  of  liberty 
and  equality,  almost  all  the  ecclesiastics 
in  the  Convention  followed  his  ex¬ 
ample.  To  hold  back  at  such  a  moment 
was  dangerous  in  the  extreme,  yet  Gre¬ 
goire  had  the  hardihood  to  utter  a 
defiant  protest.  “  I  am  a  Catholic  by 
conviction  and  by  feeling,  a  priest  by 
choice,  a  bishop  by  the  voice  of  the 
people,  but  not  from  the  people  nor 
from  you  do  I  derive  my  mission,  and 
I  will  not  be  forced  to  an  abjuration.” 
To  him  perhaps  more  than  to  any  one 
else  is  attributable  tbe  skilful  manage¬ 
ment  which  carried  the  church  through 
the  storms  and  persecutions  of  the 
Revolution,  but  the  same  inflexibility 
which  maintained  his  Catholicism 
through  the  ordeal  of  1793  and  1794 
caused  him  to  stand  by  his  republi¬ 
canism  long  after  it  had  gone  out  of 
fashion.  He  was  not  to  be  bought  or 
bullied ;  the  Legitimist  was  less  tole¬ 
rant  than  the  Terrorist,  and  under  the 
Restoration  he  was  reduced  almost  to 
absolute  indigence.  Together  with  the 
other  constitutional  bishops,  he  had 
been  compelled  to  resign  his  bishopric 
by  order  of  the  pope  after  the  Concordat 
of  1801,  and  he  was  too  dangerous  a 
man  to  be  rewarded  for  his  invaluable 
services  to  religion.  He  died  in  1831. 

i 


XXXI. 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


The  question  of  sacerdotal  marriage  was  left  in  France,  on  the 
collapse  of  the  empire,  in  a  curiously  unsettled  condition,  giving  rise 
to  very  remarkable  contradictions  in  the  judicial  decisions  which  since 
then  have  from  time  to  time  been  rendered  by  the  tribunals  as  cases 
were  brought  before  them. 

Under  the  Restoration,  a  priest  named  Martin,  an  old  refraetaire 
of  1792,  committed  the  imprudence  of  marrying  in  1815.  Not  long 
after  he  died  without  issue.  His  relatives  contested  the  succession 
with  the  widow,  and  in  1817  the  inferior  court  decided  in  her  favor. 
The  next  year  the  court  of  appeals  reversed  the  judgment  on  the 
ground  that  sacerdotal  marriage  had  only  been  sanctioned  indirectly 
by  the  legislation  of  the  Revolution,  and  that  the  Charter  of  1814 
(Art.  6)  had  restored  Catholicism  as  the  religion  of  the  state.  In 
1821,  however,  the  final  decision  of  the  court  of  cassation  settled 
the  question  in  favor  of  the  widow,  thus  legalizing  such  unions,  for 
the  incontrovertible  reason  that  the  code  did  not  recognize  vows  or 
holy  orders  as  causes  incapacitating  for  marriage.1 

Even  yet,  however,  the  matter  was  not  held  to  be  finally  disposed  of. 
In  1828,  Louis  Therese  Saturnin  Dumonteil,  a  priest  of  Paris,  who 
desired  to  contract  marriage,  failed  to  obtain  from  the  courts  the 
customary  assistance  required  by  the  law  to  set  aside  the  refusal  of 
his  parents,  who  declined  their  assent  to  his  projected  union.  The 
case  was  argued  in  all  its  bearings  on  civil  and  ecclesiastical  law,  and 
he  found  the  tribunals  resolutely  opposed  to  him.  When  the  Revo¬ 
lution  of  July  unsettled  the  public  mind  with  visions  of  the  revival 
of  the  principles  of  ’89,  Dumonteil  endeavored  to  carry  out  his  pro- 


1  Gregoire,  op.  cit.  p.  102. 


600 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


ject.  The  lower  court  decided  in  his  favor,  March  26,  1831,  but 
the  higher  courts  reversed  the  decision  and  pronounced  definitely 
that  priests  could  not  contract  civil  marriage,1  and  this  in  spite  of 
the  Charter  of  1830,  which  simply  affirmed  Catholicism  to  be  the 
religion  of  the  majority  of  Frenchmen,  while  that  of  1814  had 
declared  it  to  be  the  religion  of  the  state. 

This  curiously  vexed  question  seems  incapable  of  positive  solution. 
The  case  of  Dumonteil  apparently  discouraged  aspirants  for  clerical 
marriage  during  the  next  thirty  years,  for  I  have  met  with  no 
allusions  to  any  attempt  in  that  direction  until  1861.  In  that  year 
M.  de  Brou-Lauriere,  a  priest  already  debarred  from  his  sacred  func¬ 
tions,  engaged  himself  in  marriage  with  Mdlle.  Elizabeth  Fressanges, 
of  Deuville  near  Perigueux.  On  calling  upon  the  mayor  of  the  vil¬ 
lage  to  perform  the  ceremony  and  register  the  contract,  that  func¬ 
tionary  refused  to  act.  He  was  supported  by  the  public  authorities, 
and  the  expectant  bridegroom  was  obliged  to  appeal  to  the  tribunals  to 
obtain  his  rights.  The  question  was  warmly  contested  and  thoroughly 
argued,  and  it  was  not  until  a  year  had  elapsed  that  the  court  of  Peri¬ 
gueux  rendered  a  decision  ordering  the  mayor  to  perform  his  functions 
and  to  marry  the  patient  couple.  The  case  was  then  carried  to  the 
superior  court  at  Bordeaux,  which  reversed  the  previous  decision. 

Again,  in  1864,  in  the  case  of  the  Abbe  Chataigneu,  the  court  of 
Angouleme  decided  that  a  priest  was,  under  the  law  of  France,  not 
competent  to  contract  civil  marriage.2  On  the  other  hand,  in  1870, 
the  court  of  Algiers,  in  the  case  of  a  M.  Q - ,  delivered  an  elabo¬ 

rate  decision  to  the  effect  that  in  France  there  is  no  law  forbidding 
the  civil  marriage  of  priests.3  Yet  in  1878  the  court  of  cassation 
confirmed  a  decision  of  the  court  of  Bennes,  pronouncing  null  and 
void  the  marriage  of  a  priest,  at  the  instance  of  his  nephew  and  neice, 
to  whom  he  had  bequeathed  his  property  by  a  will  anterior  to  the 
marriage.  When  M.  Loyson  (Pere  Ilyacinthe)  married  Mrs.  Merri- 
man,  in  1872,  the  ceremony  was  performed  in  London,  at  the  office 
of  the  Registrar  of  Marriages,  and  M.  Loyson  gave  as  the  reason  of 
his  seeking  a  foreign  land  the  refusal  of  the  French  officials  to  con- 


1  Bouhier  de  l’Ecluse,  op.  cit.  It 
was  apparently  this  case  which  led  to 
the  publication,  under  date  of  Monaco, 
1829,  of  the  “  Considerazioni  impar- 
ziali  sopra  la  legge  del  Celibato  Eccle- 
siastico,  proposte  dal  Professore 
C.  A.  P.” — a  tolerably  well  written 


summary  of  the  arguments  against  the 
rule. 

2  Talmadge’s  Letters  from  Florence, 

p.  166. 

3  Chavard,  Le  Celibat  des  Pretres, 

!  pp.  525-30. 


CASES  OF  CLERICAL  MARRIAGE. 


601 


firm  the  civil  ceremony.  So  the  Abbe  Chavard,  vicar  at  Marseilles, 
in  18T4,  went  to  Geneva  for  the  same  purpose,  where  he  continued 
his  priestly  functions ;  and  this  leads  me  to  regard  as  exceedingly 
improbable  a  recent  statement  in  the  daily  journals  that  priestly 
marriages  occur  in  France  at  the  rate  of  twenty  or  thirty  a  year. 
In  fact,  so  lately  as  September,  1883,  there  was  before  the  courts 
a  case  which  shows  how  uncertain  is  the  question  still  in  France.  A 
certain  Abbe  Junqua  was  expelled  from  the  church  and  was  con¬ 
demned  to  three  months’  imprisonment  for  continuing  to  wear  the 
priestly  robes.  He  subsequently  married  and  engaged  in  trade,  when 
he  failed,  and  his  wife  sought  to  secure  her  dowry  from  the  bankrupt 
assets,  but  was  resisted  on  the  ground  that  her  marriage  was  illegal 
under  the  Concordat,  although  the  church  had  itself  deprived  the 
husband  of  his  ecclesiastical  character. 

In  Switzerland  I  have  met  with  two  or  three  cases  of  such  mar¬ 
riages,  but  they  have  no  special  significance.  In  one  of  them,  occur¬ 
ring  in  Lucerne  some  thirty  years  ago,  the  priest  left  the  church  in 
order  to  marry,  and  lived  with  his  wife  until  her  death,  in  1880,  wlien 
he  permitted  her  to  be  buried  as  a  Catholic,  and  had  the  mortifica¬ 
tion  of  seeing  her  name  entered  on  the  register,  publicly  exposed  in 
the  parish  church,  as  an  unmarried  woman. 

In  Wiesbaden,  in  1821,  a  priest  named  Koch,  with  the  permission 
of  the  authorities,  abandoned  the  priesthood  and  applied  to  the  cure 
of  the  place  to  marry  him,  when,  meeting  with  a  refusal,  he  had  the 
ceremony  performed  by  a  Protestant  pastor,  and  was  promptly  ex¬ 
communicated  by  the  Vicar  of  Ratisbon.  Not  deterred  by  this,  in 
1828  a  hundred  and  eighty  priests  of  Baden  petitioned  the  secular 
power  for  permission  to  marry,  and  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  showed 
a  disposition  to  grant  the  request.  This  effort  was  imitated  in  1881 
by  the  Catholic  clergy  of  Silesia,  but  the  movement  was  repressed 
by  the  Prussian  government ;  and  in  1833,  at  Treves,  a  clerical 
association  was  formed  to  carry  out  the  same  object.1  These  efforts 
brought  forth  from  Gregory  XVI.  an  encyclical  letter,  in  which  he 
urged  the  faithful  to  stand  by  the  canons,  and  severely  condemned 
the  weakness  of  some  prelates  who  were  disposed  to  yield.2  Some 
similar  movements  in  Austria  in  the  next  decade  led  Pius  IX.,  almost 
immediately  after  his  accession  to  the  papal  chair,  in  his  encyclical 


1  J.  M.  Cayla,  Les  Cures  maries  par  le  Concile,  Paris,  1869. 

2  Encyc.  Mirari  vos. 


602 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


letter  of  November  9th,  1846,  to  condemn  the  foul  conspiracy  against 
celibacy  which  was  favored  by  ecclesiastics  plunged  in  sensuality  and 
forgetful  of  their  own  dignity.1  In  1851,  moreover,  he  took  especial 
pains  to  stigmatize  a  work,  published  in  Lima  by  Francisco  de  Paula 
in  1848,  entitled  “Defensa  de  la  Autoridad  de  los  Gobiernos,”  which 
impiously  sought  to  decentralize  the  church,  and  which  took  strong 
grounds  against  enforced  celibacy.2 

How  immovable,  indeed,  is  the  position  of  the  hierarchy  on  this 
matter  is  shown  by  the  case  of  Panzini.  Panzini  is,  or  wras,  a 
Capuchin  monk  who,  in  1854,  conceived  the  idea  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  evils  under  which  the  establishment  labors  are  the  result 
of  celibacy  and  its  attendant  immorality.  He  addressed  to  the  pope 
an  anonymous  memorial  urging  him  to  submit  the  question  to  the 
bishops  then  assembled  in  Pome,  and  followed  this  with  two  similar 
subsequent  applications.  Finally,  in  the  troubles  of  1859,  antici¬ 
pating  the  assembling  of  a  European  congress,  he  resolved  to  print 
an  essay  on  the  subject,  addressed  to  all  the  bishops  of  the  church, 
thinking  that  the  congress  would  afford  him  an  opportunity  of  reach¬ 
ing  them.  The  printer  to  whom  he  confided  his  manuscript  promptly 
placed  the  dangerous  matter  in  the  hands  of  Cardinal  Antonelli,  when 
Panzini  was  at  once  thrown  into  prison  and  delivered  to  the  Inqui¬ 
sition.  After  a  trial  which  lasted  six  months,  he  was  condemned  to 
twelve  years’  incarceration  and  perpetual  suspension  from  the  sacer¬ 
dotal  functions  which  were  his  only  source  of  livelihood.  After  two 
years  of  his  sentence  had  expired,  he  was  released  at  the  instance  of 
the  Italian  government,  and  in  1865  he  published  his  essay,  re¬ 
written  from  memory,  under  the  title  of  “  Pubblica  Confessione  di 
un  Prigioniero  dell’  Inquisizione  Pomana  ed  origine  dei  mali  della 
Chiesa  Cattolica.” 

Now,  Panzini’s  persecution  arose  solely  from  his  affirming  that 
enforced  celibacy  is  impolitic  and  unnatural.  He  professed  un¬ 
bounded  reverence  for  the  church  in  all  matters  of  faith,  and  claimed 
that  the  point  at  issue  was  merely  one  of  discipline  on  which  the 
church  might  make  a  mistake.  Even  here,  however,  he  was  careful 
to  declare  his  measureless  admiration  for  voluntary  asceticism.  Vir¬ 
ginity  he  believed  to  be  immensely  superior  to  matrimony,  and  he 
anathematized  as  cheerfully  as  the  council  of  Trent  could  wish  all 
who  should  proclaim  the  contrary.  Even  monasticism  he  defended 


1  Encyc.  Qui  pluribus. 


3  Litt.  Apostol.  Multiplies  inter. 


ITS  POLICY. 


603 


as  a  state  of  perfection  recommended  by  Christ.  His  sole  objective 
point  was  the  rigidity  of  the  law  which  renders  the  single  state  indis¬ 
pensable  to  all  ecclesiastics,  and  he  essayed  to  prove  that  this  is  in 
direct  antagonism  to  all  the  general  principles  of  Catholic  theology, 
that  the  purity  which  is  its  pretext  is  impossible  to  enforce,  and  that 
the  effort  itself  is  most  disastrous  to  the  church  and  to  the  faithful. 
The  authorities  were  not  disposed  to  consider  that  these  opinions 
were  an  allowable  dissidence  on  matters  of  policy,  and  they  hastened 
to  brand  them  as  heretical.  In  the  sentence  passed  upon  Panzini 
the  Inquisition  took  occasion  to  stigmatize  as  heresy  the  assertion 
that  enforced  celibacy  is  contrary  to  nature,  that  it  is  a  stumbling- 
block  and  the  cause  of  perpetual  transgression.1  That  this  theory 
was  enforced  in  practice  so  long  as  the  church  could  control  the  secu¬ 
lar  power  is  shown  in  the  case  of  an  Italian  priest  who,  preferring 
to  sanctify  love  by  marriage  rather  than  to  indulge  in  illicit  intrigue, 
married  and  fled  with  his  bride  to  Africa,  seeking  among  the  Infidel 
the  liberty  denied  him  in  Christendom.  Three  children  blessed  his 
union,  but  the  unresting  vigilance  of  the  church  discovered  his 
retreat,  when,  with  the  aid  of  the  French  consulate,  he  was  seized, 
carried  back  to  Naples,  and  thrown  into  prison  to  repent  indefinitely 
over  his  errors.2 

There  evidently  could  be  no  reasonable  ground  for  expecting  a 
change  of  policy  in  this  respect  on  the  part  of  the  Roman  curia,  and 
this  was  recognized  in  1866  by  some  Catholic  priests  of  Hungary, 
who  desiring  liberty  of  marriage,  and  seeing  the  futility  of  antici¬ 
pating  it  at  the  hands  of  their  superiors,  united  in  petitioning  the 
National  Diet  for  the  requisite  permission.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  ex¬ 
travagance  of  supposing  that  a  body  which,  since  the  Council  of 
Trent,  has  become  so  thoroughly  centralized  as  the  church,  would 
listen  to  the  wishes  of  its  lower  classes,  there  were  not  wanting  those 
who  imagined  that  the  Council  of  the  Vatican  in  1870  would  adopt 
the  discipline  of  the  Eastern  Church  and  permit  marriage  to  the  in¬ 
ferior  orders.  Any  such  expectations  were  destined  to  be  disap¬ 
pointed  as  soon  as  the  preliminary  machinery  of  the  council  became 
known.  A  congregazione  centrale  was  appointed  by  Pius  IX.  in 
advance,  consisting  exclusively  of  cardinals  connected  with  the  In¬ 
quisition,  and  to  this  body  was  delegated  the  sole  determination  of 
the  matters  to  be  submitted  to  the  council  for  discussion.  Under 


1  Panzini,  pp.  16,  58,  102,  143,  201,  401. 


2  Ibid.  p.  123. 


604 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


this  congregazione,  and  presided  over  by  its  members,  were  five  con- 
suite,  to  act  as  sub-committees  on  the  subjects  respectively  confided 
to  their  deliberations.  The  consulta  on  faith  and  dogma  was  under 
the  presidency  of  Cardinal  Bilio,  notorious  as  the  compiler  of  the 
Syllabus  of  December,  1864  ;  and  that  on  canons  and  discipline  was 
committed  to  Cardinal  Catarini,  whose  whole  career  had  been  passed 
in  the  Inquisition,  and  who  had  acquired  a  sinister  fame  by  his 
rigorous  punishment  of  all  attempts  at  reform.  If,  as  the  church 
asserts,  the  proceedings  of  general  councils  are  under  the  immediate 
operation  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  it  will  be  seen  what  reverent  care  was 
observed  to  keep  Him  in  due  subjection,  and  to  spare  the  church  the 
scandal  of  being  brought,  by  thoughtless  innovators,  into  opposition 
with  Him. 

As  the  destined  outcome  of  the  council  was  simply  the  dogma  of 
papal  infallibility,  the  hopes  of  the  anti-celibatarians  were  transferred 
to  the  schism  caused  by  that  dogma,  and  known  as  that  of  the  Old 
Catholics.  In  18T5,  a  Dean  Suczinsky  married  the  Baroness 
Gazewaska,  and  joined  the  schismatics,  when  the  Prussian  govern¬ 
ment  decided  to  protect  him  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  temporalities, 
and  his  new  brethren  agreed  to  receive  him,  and  thus  committed 
themselves  on  the  question  of  celibacy — a  decision  confirmed  in  18T8 
by  the  Synod  of  Bonn,  which  decreed,  by  a  vote  of  75  against  22, 
that  the  prohibition  of  the  canons  is  not  an  obstacle  to  the  marriage 
of  ecclesiastics,  or  to  the  cure  of  souls  by  married  priests.  Yet  the 
Old  Catholic  movement,  despite  the  well-earned  eminence  of  some  of 
its  leaders,  such  as  Dollinger,  was  destined  to  failure  from  the  start. 
It  sought  a  compromise  where  no  compromise  was  possible — asserting 
the  right  of  private  judgment  against  the  Church  Universal  only  to  a 
certain  point,  and  that  point  one  which  concerned  itself  rather  with 
intellectual  subtleties  than  actual  daily  affairs.  The  unbearable  op¬ 
pressions  which  lent  practical  application  to  the  polemics  of  Luther 
no  longer  existed ;  and  the  secular  powers  of  Europe  felt  too  secure 
in  their  ability  to  defend  themselves  against  ecclesiastical  encroach¬ 
ment  to  give  substantial  aid  to  the  opponents  of  Rome.  The  Old 
Catholic  schism  may  therefore  already  be  regarded  almost  as  a  thing 
of  the  past,  and  one  which  will  exercise  no  influence  over  the  future. 

A  more  serious  blow  than  that  which  Dollinger  and  his  friends 
sought  to  aim  at  the  Roman  curia  has  been  dealt,  in  the  matter  of 
marriage,  by  the  adoption,  in  successive  Catholic  states,  of  what  is 
known  as  Civil  Marriage,  by  which  matrimony  is  withdrawn  from 


CIVIL  MARRIAGE. 


605 


the  exclusive  control  of  the  church,  and  the  sacrament  and  benedic¬ 
tion  are  declared  to  be  accidents  not  necessary  to  the  legal  status  of 
husband  and  wife  or  to  the  legitimacy  and  heritable  capacity  of  chil¬ 
dren.  We  have  already  seen  that  this  was  one  of  the  legislative 
results  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  example  thus  early  set  by 
France  has  been  followed  of  late  by  Italy  and  Austria  after  its  adop¬ 
tion,  in  1853  by  Sardinia,  as  one  of  the  earliest  reformatory  measures 
of  Cavour.  Yet  the  church  positively  refuses  to  regard  such  mar¬ 
riages  as  entitled  to  respect.  When  the  project  was  under  discus¬ 
sion  in  Italy,  the  Unita  Cattolica ,  one  of  the  papal  organs,  in  its  issue 
of  July  16th,  1864,  did  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  the  establishment 
of  civil  matrimony  was  establishing  the  liberty  of  licentiousness,  and 
that,  after  having  scattered  houses  of  ill-fame  throughout  Italy,  it 
would  convert  the  whole  peninsula  into  one  brothel.  In  a  similar 
spirit,  Pius  IX.,  in  his  allocution  of  October  30th,  1866,  denounced 
it  as  leading  to  an  organized  system  of  scandalous  concubinage. 
When,  in  May,  1868,  Austria  followed  the  example  of  Italy,  Pius, 
within  a  month,  delivered  an  allocution,  in  which  he  not  only  con¬ 
demned  the  “ abominable  law,”  but  declared  it  to  be  null  and  void; 
and  Cardinal  Rausch er,  Archbishop  of  Vienna,  issued  a  manifesto, 
in  which  he  not  only  denied  that  the  civil  contract  constituted  mar¬ 
riage  and  directed  that  children  sprung  from  such  unions  should  be 
entered  on  the  parish  registers  as  neither  legitimate  nor  illegitimate, 
but  gave  positive  instructions  that  absolution  should  be  denied,  even 
in  articulo  mortis ,  to  all  parties  who  had  cohabited  in  such  unions — 
thus  stigmatizing  them  as  worse  than  concubinage.  In  a  similar 
spirit,  when,  in  1869,  civil  marriage  was  proclaimed  under  the  short¬ 
lived  republic  of  Spain,  the  clergy,  under  inspiration  from  the  Vati¬ 
can,  denounced  it  as  concubinage,  and  threatened  to  suspend  the 
celebration  of  the  Mass.  With  the  restoration  of  the  monarchy  the 
law  was  promptly  repealed,  and  an  effort  to  restore  it  wTas  rejected 
by  an  emphatic  vote  of  the  Cortes  in  February,  1883,  though,  with 
the  more  liberal  tendencies  that  have  since  arisen,  the  matter  is  again 
proposed  for  discussion.  Leo  XIII.  has  been  vigorous  in  his  oppo¬ 
sition  to  the  innovation.  In  his  first  Encyclical,  issued  April  21st, 
1878,  he  declared  that  “citizens,  profaning  the  dignity  of  Christian 
marriage,  have  adopted  legal  concubinage  in  place  of  religious  matri¬ 
mony;”  and  he  returned  to  the  attack  in  a  special  Encyclical  on  the 
subject,  published  February  10th  1880.  In  this  he  assumes  that,  as 
“by  the  will  of  Christ  the  church  alone  can  and  ought  to  legislate 


606 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


and  decide  concerning  sacraments,  so  it  is  out  of  the  question  to 
attempt  to  transfer  any,  even  the  smallest  part,  of  her  power  to  the 
government  of  the  state,”  and  therefore  “judicial  sentences  on  con¬ 
jugal  contracts,  as  to  whether  they  have  been  entered  upon  rightly 
or  wrongly,”  are  a  direct  infringement  of  the  rights  of  the  church, 
whether  those  judgments  be  adverse  or  not  to  the  canons. 

The  earlier  passages  of  this  Encyclical  are  so  warm  and  eloquent 
a  defence  of  the  holiness  of  matrimony,  as  the  natural  condition  of 
man  decreed  by  God,  that  it  would  probably  trouble  its  author  to 
explain  why  so  exalted  and  divine  a  state  should  be  prohibited  to 
the  ministers  of  the  God  who  devised  it  and  fitted  his  creatures 
specially  for  it.  Yet  the  persistent  and  bitter  opposition  of  the 
church  to  the  civil  marriage  laws  may  not  unreasonably  be  attributed 
to  the  fact  that  under  them  the  state  has  the  power  to  recognize  and 
permit  clerical  marriage.  For  more  than  half  a  century  such  laws 
had  existed  in  France,  but  as  the  French  tribunals  leaned  towards 
upholding  ecclesiastical  celibacy,  they  were  acquiesced  in  compara¬ 
tively  in  silence.  When  Italy,  however,  followed  the  example,  it 
wTas  seen  that  the  temper  of  the  Italian  government  would  lead  to 
construing  them  in  a  sense  favorable  to  priestly  liberty,  and  hence 
the  opposition,  which  has  been  justified  and  intensified  by  the  result. 
Immediately  on  the  passage  of  the  Civil  Marriage  Act,  Dr.  Prota, 
of  Naples,  an  energetic  reformer  within  the  church,  in  a  letter  of 
October  30th,  1865,  advised  all  his  clerical  friends  to  marry  and  to 
persist  in  the  exercise  of  their  functions,  “and  the  more  who  do  so 
at  once  and  simultaneously  the  safer  for  all,  for  the  bishops  will  ven¬ 
ture  the  less  to  persecute  you  in  the  face  of  public  opinion.”  Accord¬ 
ingly  cases  of  priestly  marriage  commenced  to  occur,  and  when  they 
were  contested  their  validity  was  confirmed  by  the  tribunals.  The 
superior  courts  of  Genoa,  Trani,  and  Palermo  successively  decided 
in  this  sense,  and  finally,  in  1869,  occurred  the  case  of  Andrea 
Treglia,  of  the  diocese  of  Salerno,  which  settled  the  question  in 
Naples.  The  municipal  officers  of  Yietri  refused  to  marry  him;  the 
court  of  Salerno  decided  against  him,  but  when  the  matter  was  car¬ 
ried  up  to  the  court  of  appeals  of  Naples  judgment  was  rendered  in 
his  favor,  and  he  was  married  forthwith — thus  legitimating  the  unions 
of  some  fifty  priests  wrho  had  preceded  him,  without  the  question 
having  been  settled  by  the  tribunal  of  last  resort.  In  the  organ  of 
the  reforming  Catholics  of  Naples,  the  Emancipatore  Cattolica ,  it 
is  curious  to  see  the  successive  marriages  chronicled  with  the  same 


MAINTENANCE  OF  CELIBACY. 


607 


satisfaction  as  that  evinced  by  Spalatin  in  the  stormy  days  of 
Luther.1 

Yet  the  whole  question  is  one  of  but  slender  practical  importance. 
In  no  country  is  the  Catholic  church  subservient  to  the  state.  It 
controls  its  own  sacraments,  and  no  government  is  likely  to  venture 
upon  interference  with  it  in  its  own  sphere.  While,  therefore,  it 
may  be  deprived  of  the  power  to  persecute  and  punish  those  of  its 
members  who  enter  upon  civil  marriage,  it  yet  possesses  the  ability 
to  deprive  them  of  their  functions,  which  in  most  cases  is  equivalent 
to  depriving  them  of  bread;  and  it  has  an  unquestioned  right  to 
expel  them  from  its  communion.  The  priest  who  marries,  therefore, 
is  virtually  separated  from  his  church  and  deprived  of  his  means  of 
livelihood — motives  which,  combined  with  the  moral  forces  at  wTork 
to  keep  men  within  the  accustomed  bounds,  are  quite  sufficient  to 
prevent  defection  from  growing  common,  or  to  render  marriage  with 
a  priest  attractive  to  women  above  the  lowest  class.  Even  in  the 
United  States,  where  there  is  no  legal  impediment  to  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  and  the  tone  of  society  is  such  as  rather  to  welcome  those  who 
escape  from  the  pale  of  Rome,  such  cases  are  very  rare.  A  few 
years  since  one  occurred  in  Philadelphia,  and  in  February,  1882, 
Father  Agudi,  of  Plartford,  committed  matrimony,  but  these  are  the 
only  instances  which  I  remember  to  have  noted  for  many  years  past. 
While,  therefore,  the  civil  marriage  laws  of  Europe  unquestionably 
loosen  the  ties  which  in  this  respect  bind  the  priest  to  his  church, 
there  are  still  sufficient  material  and  moral  forces  at  work  to  prevent 
desertions  from  this  cause  from  assuming  any  serious  proportions. 


Predictions,  as  a  rule,  are  idle,  and  yet  it  would  appear  entirely 
safe  to  assume  that  those  who  look  forward  to  a  change  in  the  policy 
of  the  church  as  regards  the  enforcement  of  celibacy  among  its 
ministers  are  prompted  rather  by  their  wishes  than  by  judgment,  or 
by  knowledge  of  the  influences  at  work.  It  matters  little  what  may 
be  the  aspirations  of  the  vast  body  of  men  who  form  the  working 
ecclesiastical  force — the  humble  priests  and  cures  upon  whom  it  de¬ 
pends  for  its  support  among  the  populations.  The  autocratic  theocracy, 
founded  in  the  dark  ages,  and  strengthened  by  the  council  of  Trent, 


1  Naples  was,  perhaps,  the  first  king¬ 
dom  in  Europe  to  promulgate  a  civil 
marriage  law,  and  to  withdraw  matri¬ 
monial  cases  from  ecclesiastical  juris¬ 


diction.  This  was  one  of  the  reforms 
of  the  minority  of  Ferdinand  IY.  about 
the  year  1760.  See  Colletti’s  History 
of  Naples,  Horner’s  Translation,  I.  107. 


608 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


received  its  final  and  irrevocable  shape  when  the  church  submissively 
adopted  the  Vatican  decree,  which  declared  “  that  the  Roman  pontiff, 
when  he  sjDeaks  ex  cathedra ,  that  is,  when  in  discharge  of  the  office 
of  pastor  and  doctor  of  all  Christians,  by  virtue  of  his  supreme 
apostolic  authority,  he  defines  a  doctrine  regarding  faith  or  morals, 
to  be  held  by  the  universal  church,  by  the  divine  assistance  promised 
him  in  blessed  Peter,  is  possessed  of  that  infallibility  with  which  the 
divine  Redeemer  willed  that  his  church  should  be  endowed  for  de¬ 
fining  doctrine  regarding  faith  or  morals ;  and  that  therefore  such 
definitions  are  irreformable  of  themselves,  and  not  from  the  consent 
of  the  church.  But  if  any  one — which  may  God  avert — presume  to 
contradict  this  definition  let  him  be  anathema.”1  It  would  be  futile 
to  imagine  after  this  that  any  pressure  could  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  Roman  curia  sufficient  to  induce  a  change  in  its  immemorial 
policy — a  change,  moreover,  which  would  overwhelm  it  with  the 
bitterest  humiliation  by  contradicting  all  its  teachings  since  the  days 
of  St.  Jerome.  What  was  so  unbendingly  refused  to  all  the  princes 
and  nearly  all  the  clergy  of  Catholic  Christendom  in  the  doubtful 
days  of  the  Reformation  will  not  be  granted  now,  when,  despite  the 
destruction  of  the  temporal  power  in  Italy,  the  spiritual  influence  of 
the  church  is  as  great  as  ever,  and  it  sees  the  results  of  its  policy  in 
the  rapidly  extending  area  of  its  domination.  When  Pius  IX.  could 
boast  that  during  his  single  pontificate  he  had  founded  twenty-nine 
metropolitan  sees  and  one  hundred  and  thirty  episcopal  dioceses, 
there  would  seem  to  be  no  valid  reason,  from  the  stand-point  of  the 
Vatican,  for  an  act  so  revolutionary  as  the  abrogation  of  celibacy, 
which  would  convert  its  janizaries  into  householders,  with  human 
interests  dissociated  from  those  of  the  church-militant. 

The  monastic  orders  have  not  escaped  the  innovating  spirit  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  In  Spain,  the  revolutionary  cortes  of  1820 
enacted  a  law  suppressing  all  the  existing  monastic  foundations,  ex¬ 
cepting  the  Knights  of  Malta  and  the  Hospitalarios  de  San  Juan, 
and  further  prohibiting  the  founding  of  new  institutions  and  the  ad¬ 
ministering  of  vows ;  but  when  in  1823  the  constitutional  govern¬ 
ment  fell  under  French  bayonets,  the  Orders  reestablished  themselves 
and  took  a  bloody  revenge  upon  their  persecutors.  Again  in  1836 
the  government  of  Isabella  II.  undertook  the  same  task,  excepting 


1  Cone.  Vatican,  ann.  1870  Const.  Dogmat.  I.  cap.  iv.  I  use  Cardinal  Man¬ 
ning’s  version. 


ATTACKS  ON  MONACHISM. 


609 


the  Padres  de  las  Escuelas  Pias,  the  Hospitalarios  de  San  Juan,  and 
the  Clerigos  de  la  Mision,  but  the  attempt  was  short-lived ;  as  was 
also  that  of  1868  under  the  Republic.  In  the  Netherlands,  a  series 
of  laws  adopted  between  1818  and  1826  forbade  the  admission  of 
novices  in  the  contemplative  orders,  which,  being  of  no  public  utility, 
had  no  claim  for  recognition ;  and  irrevocable  vows,  moreover,  were 
declared  illegal.  In  1820  a  similar  effort  was  made  in  Naples,  but 
it  wTas  unsuccessful.  In  the  New  World  still  more  sweeping  reforms 
have  been  undertaken.  Thus  Paraguay,  in  1824,  suppressed  all 
monasteries  as  useless ;  Brazil,  in  1829,  prohibited  the  entrance  of 
new  devotees  in  the  existing  foundations,  thus  condemning  them  to 
gradual  extinction ;  and  in  1851  New  Grenada  not  only  expelled 
the  Company  of  Jesus  and  forbade  the  establishment  of  any  Order 
professing  the  doctrine  of  passive  obedience,  but  threw  open  the  doors 
of  all  religious  establishments,  and  promised  legal  protection  to  those 
who  should  abandon  them.  Ten  years  later  it  suppressed  them 
altogether,  and  in  18T4  its  example  was  followed  in  Venezuela.1 
In  1849,  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Roman  Republic  was  to  liberate 
all  monks  and  nuns  from  obedience  to  their  vows ;  and  in  1853 
Cavour  suppressed  all  the  monastic  houses  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Sardinia,  applying  their  property  to  the  improvement  of  the  clergy, 
in  spite  of  the  superstitious  fears  excited  by  the  almost  simultaneous 
deaths  of  several  members  of  the  royal  family.  After  the  formation 
of  the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  the  law  of  June  28th,  1866,  completed  the 
suppression  of  all  the  religious  houses,  pensioned  or  subsidized  their 
members,  and  confiscated  their  property.  This  process  of  seculari¬ 
zation  was  rapidly  carried  out,  and  early  in  186T  the  journals 
reported  that  nearly  all  the  inmates  of  the  monasteries  were  dispersed, 
some  of  them  returning  to  their  families,  some  of  them  accepting 
refuge  offered  by  the  charitable,  but  most  of  them  clubbing  together 
and  hiring  houses  in  which  to  live  as  of  old.  Two  exceptions, 
indeed,  were  made  in  the  enforcement  of  the  law.  Monte  Casino, 
the  venerable  mother  of  western  monachism,  was  spared,  and  pro¬ 
vision  made  for  its  maintenance  as  a  national  monument;  while 
Savonarola’s  convent  of  San  Marco  was  similarly  favored,  rather 
perhaps  because  of  its  frescoes  than  of  its  historical  associations. 
Against  all  this  the  church  of  course  protested  vigorously,  pronounc- 

1  Castillo  y  Mayone,  II.  247,  254. —  bili  afllictamur,  17  Sept.  1863. — Cba- 
Panzini,  pp.  358-63. — Alloc.  Acerbissi-  vard,  op.  cit.  p.  263. 
mum,  27  Sept.  1852. — Encyc.  Incredi- 


39 


610 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


ing  the  suppression  of  the  orders  and  the  secularization  of  their  pos¬ 
sessions  to  be  null  and  void ;  but  the  readiness  with  which  purchasers 
were  found  to  give  even  more  than  the  appraised  value  of  the  prop¬ 
erty,  shows  how  futile  was  resistance  to  the  tendency  of  the  age. 

So  great  a  social  revolution  was  of  course  not  effected  without 
much  of  individual  suffering,  which,  in  some  cases  at  least,  was  not 
diminished  by  the  methods  adopted  in  enforcing  the  law.  The  fact 
that  in  1856,  8000  monks  petitioned  Pius  IX.  for  secularization, 
shows  that  the  ideas  of  the  age  had  penetrated  into  some  of  the 
monasteries,  but  in  the  greater  number  of  cases  the  inmates  were 
naturally  averse  to  the  change.  Panzini,  wrho  can  assuredly  not  be 
regarded  as  a  prejudiced  witness,  speaks  with  hitter  indignation  of 
the  files  of  soldiery  sent  to  drive  from  their  houses  the  terrified  nuns, 
wTho  were  thrown  upon  the  world  without  the  means  of  subsistence 
or  the  training  to  earn  a  livelihood,  while  their  vows  precluded  them 
from  marrying  or  from  worldly  employment.  Even  the  private 
fortunes  brought  by  them  in  many  cases  to  their  convents  shared  the 
common  fate  of  confiscation,  and  they  sought  in  vain  to  have  their 
dowers  restored  to  them.1  It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  sympathy  for 
those  whose  misfortune  consists  in  having  been  born  too  late,  and 
who  are  made  to  expiate  the  sins  of  a  system  which  they  have  rever¬ 
ently  received  from  their  forefathers.  The  student  of  the  past, 
.moreover,  may  be  pardoned  a  feeling  of  regret  at  the  destruction  of 
the  venerable  institutions  which,  for  a  thousand  years,  fostered  the 
religious  growth  of  Christendom ;  but  the  civilization  which  they 
rendered  possible  has  outgrown  them.  In  the  history  of  develop¬ 
ment  it  is  inevitable  that  Zeus  should  dethrone  his  father  Cronos ; 
and  the  progress  of  humanity  demands  the  removal  of  that  which  has 
outlived  its  usefulness,  and  has  become  only  a  stumbling-block  in  the 
path  of  human  improvement. 

Pius  IX.  himself  had  felt  the  need  of  some  measure  of  reform  in 
the  religious  orders,  but  was  powerless  to  enforce  it.  It  is  asserted 
that  before  his  early  liberal  tendencies  had  become  completely  eradi¬ 
cated,  on  his  return  from  Gaeta,  he  entertained  the  idea  of  rendering 
life  in  common  indispensable  in  all  monastic  institutions,  of  substi¬ 
tuting  for  the  irrevocable  vow  one  which  should  be  renewable  at  a 
fixed  interval,  and  of  deferring  all  ordinations  to  the  priesthood  until 
.the  applicant  should  have  entered  on  his  36th  year.  These  sensible 


1  Panzini,  pp.  596-7. 


MONASTIC  REACTION. 


611 


measures,  however,  were  opposed  so  strenuously  by  all  the  officials 
that  the  Pope  gave  way — the  General  of  the  Franciscans  even  pro¬ 
claiming  vehemently  that  they  wrould  assuredly  result  in  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  all  the  religious  orders.1  It  would  seem  that  Pius  eventually, 
in  this  respect  as  in  others,  fell  completely  into  the  hands  of  the 
ultra-conservatives,  for  though  in  1857  he  defined  that  the  simple 
vow  of  the  novitiate  should  not  he  taken  before  the  age  of  16,  and 
that  the  irrevocable  vow  should  be  deferred  until  the  accomplishment 
of  a  novitiate  of  three  years,  yet  the  following  year  he  decreed  that 
the  simple  vow  of  the  novice  wTas  irrevocable,  except  by  papal  dis¬ 
pensation,  unless,  indeed,  the  general  of  the  order  should  see  fit  to 
expel  the  postulant.2  It  is  remarked,  moreover,  that  while  he  not 
infrequently  exercised  his  dispensing  power  in  releasing  worthy  ap¬ 
plicants  from  the  vows  of  poverty  and  obedience,  he  never  absolved 
them  from  that  of  chastity  ;3  though  it  is  not  unreasonably  urged  that 
all  enlightened  legislation  holds  engagements,  even  in  matters  of 
trifling  import,  to  be  invalid  when  made  by  minors,  while  the  church 
permits,  and  even  incites,  children  in  their  sixteenth  year  to  enter 
into  obligations  the  nature  of  which  they  are  unable  to  appreciate, 
and  then  unyieldingly  exacts  of  them  the  rigid  execution  of  the  rash 
promise,  under  pain  of  eternal  damnation. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  these  successive  shocks,  monasticism  lias 
rarely  been  more  flourishing  or  more  vigorous  than  of  late  years. 
Warned  by  the  successive  secularization  of  its  temporalities  in  one 
country  after  another,  the  church  has  learned  to  give  to  the  monastic 
system  the  direction  in  which  its  evils  are  least  sensibly  felt,  its  bene¬ 
fits  to  humanity  are  greatest,  and  the  influence  which  it  is  capable 
of  exerting  is  most  serviceable  to  the  hierarchy.  Though  at  times 
mistaken  in  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  though  often  misled  by  pride,  by 
ambition,  and  by  avarice,  the  Roman  church  has  missed  its  aim  and 
mistaken  its  vocation,  yet,  upon  the  whole,  it  has  manifested  that 
adaptation  to  the  wants  of  successive  generations  which  is  the  real 
secret  of  its  power  and  the  condition  of  its  success.  Clearly  recog¬ 
nizing  the  scant  toleration  which  our  hard-working  nineteenth  cen- 


1  Esaminatore,  Firenze  15  Die.  1867, 
p.  396. 

2  Encvc.  Neminem  latet,  19  Mar. 
1857. — Panzini,  pp.  535-6. 

3  Panzini,  p.  123.  An  example  of 
this  is  to  be  seen  in  the  case  of  Saurin 


vs.  Starr  and  Kennedy,  which  excited 
so  much  interest  in  England  in  1869  by 
its  curious  revelations  of  the  petty 
tyrannies  and  sordid  miseries  which 
sometimes  at  least  form  a  feature  of 
conventual  life. 


612 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


tury  has  for  holy  idleness  and  unproductive  sanctity,  it  moulds  its 
institutions  to  meet  the  necessities  of  the  age.  It  no  longer  glories 
in  new  and  fantastic  forms  of  worship  or  insane  feats  of  asceticism — 
not  the  pillar  of  Stylites,  the  poverty  of  Francis,  or  the  thong  of 
the  Flagellants1 — but  it  seeks  to  organize  systems  by  which  the 
beneficence  of  the  many  may  be  efficiently  administered  by  the 
trained  labor  of  the  few.  It  endeavors  no  longer  to  agglomerate 
around  idle  communities  the  wealth  which  could  only  pander  to  their 
vices,  but  rather  to  render  useful  by  associated  action  the  benevolent 
self-abnegation  which  in  other  communions  is  apt  to  be  lost  or  frit¬ 
tered  away  for  lack  of  judicious  organization  and  direction.  When 
thus  the  vow  of  celibacy  is  uttered,  not  in  the  hope  of  a  life  of  ease 
and  sensual  indulgence,  not  in  the  pride  of  Pharisaical  holiness,  not 
in  the  lust  of  exaggerated  maceration,  not  in  the  hope  of  purchasing 
by  solitude  and  mortification  the  favor  of  an  all-merciful  Creator, 
but  for  the  single-minded  purpose  of  devoting  a  life  to  elevating 
fellow-creatures  from  degradation  or  to  relieving  their  physical  and 
mental  miseries,  no  one  can  deny  that  institutions  which  in  their 
wantonness  of  prosperity  accomplished  so  much  of  evil  possess 
fruitful  germs  of  good  to  be  developed  through  adversity  and  tribu¬ 
lation. 

The  results  of  this  wise  policy  have  shown  themselves  especially 
in  France  and  Belgium.  When,  in  1625,  St.  Vincent  de  Paul 
founded  the  Order  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  he  accomplished  a 
work  which  was  destined  to  prove  as  useful  to  the  church  as  the 
mendicant  and  preaching  orders  which  resuscitated  it  in  the  thir¬ 
teenth  century,  or  the  Company  of  Jesus,  which  enabled  it  to  set 
bounds  to  the  Protestant  Reformation.  It  was  a  return  to  the 
primal  and  vital  principles  of  Christianity,  which  bound  anew  the 
peoples  to  the  hierarchy  and  bridged  over  the  all  but  impassable 
gulf  between  them. 

This  tie,  so  delicate  and  yet  so  firm,  proved  lasting.  Even  amid 
the  horrors  of  the  Revolution,  when  conventual  vows  were  forbidden, 
and  the  monastic  orders  were  scattered  ruthlessly  abroad,  the  gentle 


1  Yet,  to  meet  the  spiritual  wants  of 
all  classes,  there  are  still  congregations 
which  practise  the  most  severe  ascetic 
austerities.  Thus,  in  1883,  a  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  Barefooted  Clares  in  Paris 
shows  that,  out  of  eighteen  members, 
but  four  are  more  than  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  the  severity  of  discipline 


causing  nearly  all  who  enter  to  die 
young.  No  tire  is  allowed,  even  that 
in  the  kitchen  being  arranged  to  pre¬ 
vent  access ;  sleep  is  only  had  on  a 
narrow  board,  meat  is  only  eaten  on 
Christmas  Day,  and  silence  is  enforced 
until  some  of  the  nuns  lose  the  power 
of  forming  connected  sentences. 


CHARITABLE  ASSOCIATIONS. 


613 


virtues  and  the  tireless  ministrations  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity  won 
for  them  respect  and  toleration  from  the  cruel  fanatics  who  respected 
and  tolerated  nothing  else.  When,  even  under  the  Concordat  of 
1801,  the  reestablishment  of  monastic  orders  was  strictly  forbidden, 
and  those  which  endeavored  timidly  to  organize  themselves  under 
the  names  of  Peres  de  la  Poi,  Victimes  de  l  ’ Amour  de  Dieu ,  Coeur 
de  Jesus ,  etc.,  were  broken  up  in  1804  without  ceremony,1  exceptions 
were  made  in  favor  of  the  charitable  associations  of  females,  the  mis¬ 
sionary  societies  of  Saint-Esprit  and  the  Lazaristes,  and  the  brother¬ 
hood  of  the  Ecoles  Chretiennes.  The  missionary  societies  proved 
to  be  a  focus  of  reactionary  intrigue,  which  the  First  Empire  was 
powerful  enough  to  crush.  They  were  accordingly  suppressed  in 
1809,  but  at  the  same  time  an  imperial  decree  placed  under  the 
fostering  care  of  Madame  Lsetitia  the  women  wTho  devoted  them¬ 
selves  to  works  of  charity  and  mercy.  Annual  appropriations  for 
their  support  were  regularly  made,  and,  thus  favored,  they  prospered 
amazingly.  The  religious  activity  of  the  people  seemed  to  flow  in 
this  channel  with  redoubled  force  from  its  long  retention,  and  in  the 
eight  years  from  1807  to  1815  there  were  no  less  than  1261  congre¬ 
gations  authorized — an  average  of  157  per  annum.  At  the  same 
time  the  state  refused  to  recognize  the  right  of  any  person  to  abstract 
himself  irrevocably  from  society.  The  law  wisely  prohibited  engage¬ 
ments  for  life  in  any  service,  and  this  was  held  applicable  to  the 
religious  congregations,  in  which,  by  the  decree  of  1809,  the  period 
of  engagement  wTas  limited  to  five  years.2 

In  spite  of  the  favor  shown  to  the  charitable  associations,  the  pre¬ 
judice  against  the  monastic  system  was  still  so  strong  that  the 
Restoration,  with  all  its  reactionary  tendencies,  did  not  dare  to  run 
counter  to  the  convictions  of  the  people.  The  law  of  1809  forbidding 


1  The  Peres  de  la  Foi,  also  known  as 
Adorateurs  de  Jtsus  and  Paccanaristes , 
were  Jesuits  in  disguise  ;  the  Socittt  des 
Victimes  de  V Amour  de  Dieu  were  Qui- 
etists.  For  the  Report  of  M.  Portalis, 
recommending  their  suppression,  see 
Dutilleul,  Hist,  des  Corporations  Re- 
ligieuses  en  France,  Paris,  1846,  pp. 
411  sqq.  For  an  exceedingly  interest¬ 
ing  sketch  of  modern  French  mona- 
chism,  see  also  Ch.  Sauvestre’s  “  Les 
Congregations  Religieuses  ”  (Paris, 
1867) — a  work  to  which  I  desire  to 


acknowledge  my  indebtedness  for  much 
that  follows. 

2  Decret  du  18  Fey.  1809  Sect.  n. 
Art.  8  (Dupin,  Droit  Eccles.  p.  295). 
This  regulation,  I  believe,  is  still  in 
force,  and  the  members  of  these  bodies 
are  accustomed  to  renew  their  engage¬ 
ments  every  five  years.  From  the  po¬ 
sition  taken  by  Bishop  Fabre,  of  Mont¬ 
real,  in  April,  1883,  in  the  case  of  a 
young  woman  who  desired  to  leave  her 
convent,  I  presume  that  the  same  regu¬ 
lation  is  in  force  in  the  Dominion  of 
Canada. 


614 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


male  congregations  was  never  repealed,  and  the  most  that  the  Bour¬ 
bons  ventured  openly  to  do  was  to  authorize  a  few  by  special  decree, 
such  as  the  Lazaristes,  the  Missions  Etrangeres,  &c.  Meanwhile 
the  female  congregations  continued  to  increase ;  a  general  law  was 
enacted  in  May,  1825,  providing  for  their  authorization  under  defi¬ 
nite  provisions,  and  between  1815  and  1830,  643  new  ones  were 
officially  recognized.  The  efforts  made  from  1825  to  182T,  under 
Charles  X.,  to  introduce  the  Jesuits  and  other  male  orders  gave  rise 
to  lively  agitation,  and  the  elections  of  1827  settled  the  question 
definitely  in  the  negative.1  The  Revolution  of  1830  put  an  end  for 
the  time  to  all  hope  of  reestablishing  the  monastic  system  in  France, 
and  a  law  in  1834  specially  affirmed  the  application  of  Art.  291  of 
the  Penal  Code,  directed  against  unauthorized  associations,  to  those 
for  religious  purposes.  The  constitutional  government  of  Louis 
Philippe  showed  itself  persistently  hostile  to  monachism.  It  is  true 
that  in  1840  Lacordaire  succeeded  in  obtaining  sufferance  for  his 
order  of  Dominicans,  but  this  was  exceptional ;  and  even  towards 
the  female  orders  the  policy  of  the  monarchy  was  repressive.  During 
the  eighteen  years  of  its  existence,  but  fourteen  authorizations  for 
founding  new  congregations  were  granted,  while  the  Jesuits,  wffio 
had  ventured  to  enter  the  kingdom  without  permission,  were  formally 
expelled  in  1845  after  a  severe  parliamentary  struggle.  The  Second 
Republic  was  more  liberal,  and  the  Second  Empire  ostentatiously 
sought  the  alliance  of  the  church.  The  Loi  Falloux,  in  1850,  seemed 
to  recognize  the  existence  of  male  orders,  and  advantage  was  imme¬ 
diately  taken  of  a  vague  phrase  to  assume  their  legality.  At  length, 
in  1852,  a  law  was  passed  regulating,  by  a  general  form,  the  incor¬ 
poration  of  all  religious  societies,  and  under  this  their  growth  was 
amazingly  rapid — none  the  less  so,  perhaps,  because  they  were  not 
even  required  by  the  authorities  to  observe  the  law  and  go  through 
the  formality  of  procuring  authorizations.  In  1827  there  were  but 
20,943  female  devotees,  while  the  number  of  males  under  conventual 
vows  was  too  insignificant  for  computation,2  and  under  the  monarchy 
of  July  the  growth  was  exceedingly  small.  In  1861  these  had  in¬ 
creased  to  17,776  males  and  90,343  females,  and  in  1877  to  22,207 
males  and  127,000  females. 

In  Belgium  the  figures  are  equally  startling.  In  1856  that  little 

1  For  details,  see  Dupin,  op.  cit.  pp.  285-298. 

J  Chabot,  Encyclopedic  Monastique,  p.  xi.  (Paris,  1827). 


SPREAD  OF  MONACHISM. 


615 


kingdom  had  2383  monks  and  12,247  nuns — a  total  of  14,630 — an 
enormous  proportion  in  so  small  a  population,  enabling  the  clergy, 
as  has  more  than  once  been  seen,  almost  to  control  the  elections. 

To  comprehend  the  full  significance  of  these  figures,  they  may  he 
compared  with  the  undisturbed  monasticism  of  an  old  Catholic  state 
such  as  Austria.  That  empire,  in  1859,  had  but  10,449  monks  and 
6463  nuns,  or  16,912  in  all.  For  the  Catholic  population  alone  of 
Austria,  this  gives  one  to  every  1579  inhabitants,  while,  about  the 
same  period  in  France  the  proportion  was  one  to  every  346  souls, 
and  in  Belgium,  one  to  every  308. 

The  Company  of  Jesus  furnishes  an  equally  instructive  illustration 
of  the  flourishing  condition  and  rapid  growth  of  monachism  despite 
the  shackles  apparently  imposed  on  it  by  modern  institutions.  The 
Jesuits,  formally  reestablished  in  1814  by  Pius  VII.  and  gradually 
working  an  entrance  into  one  kingdom  after  another,  have  increased 
with  a  rapidity  which  is  exceedingly  significant. 


Thus  in  1834  the  Company  numbered  but  2684, 


It 

1844 

tt 

a 

tt 

4133, 

*t 

1854 

it 

a 

it 

5510, 

It 

1864 

it 

tt 

a 

7734, 

and  a  still  later  computation  gives  them  7949  members,  divided  into 
3389  priests,  2323  brother  coadjutors,  and  2237  novices — the  large 
proportion  of  the  latter  indicating  how  great  is  the  prospective  in¬ 
crease.  In  France  alone  their  number  had  grown  from  200  in  1845 
to  1085  in  1865,  and  to  1509  in  1877. 

In  this  enormous  spread  of  monachism,  it  is  interesting  to  observe 
the  change  which  has  occurred  from  mediaeval  sensual  indulgence  and 
mystic  asceticism  to  modern  utilitarianism.  Thus  in  France,  by  the 
census  of  1861,  there  were,  out  of  17,776  men  bound  by  vows, 


Devoted  to  education, . 

Distribution  of  charity  and  care  of  the  sick, 

In  charge  of  houses  of  refuge  and  farm  schools, 
Devoted  to  religious  contemplation, 

while  of  90,343  women,  there  were 

Devoted  to  education,  .  ...  . 

Distribution  of  charity  and  care  of  the  sick, 

In  charge  of  houses  of  refuge  and  farm  schools, 
Devoted  to  religious  contemplation,  . 


12,845, 

389, 

496, 

4,046, 


58,883, 

20,292, 

3,073, 

8,095. 


The  large  proportion  of  almoners  and  hospital  nurses  among  the 
women  is  easily  explicable  by  what  has  already  been  stated  as  to  the 


616 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


favor  shown  by  successive  governments  to  the  Sisters  of  Charity, 
and  the  good  which  is  effected  by  these  organizations  cannot  easily 
be  overrated.  Who  is  there  who  can  fail  to  do  justice  to  these 
humble  Christians,  when  once  he  has  had  the  good  fortune  to  witness 
their  self-devotion  and  the  benefits  arising  from  their  tireless  minis¬ 
trations,  made  doubly  valuable  by  system  and  special  training  ?  In 
our  own  land,  torn  by  sudden  and  gigantic  civil  war,  when  the  sick 
and  wounded  had  accumulated  almost  beyond  the  possibility  of  care, 
■who  that  then  noted  the  blessed  agency  of  those  angels  of  the  hos¬ 
pital,  would  willingly  pause  to  coldly  criticise  the  institutions  of  which 
they  are  the  most  perfect  development  ?  In  a  Catholic  country  like 
France,  the  opportunities  for  good  -works  are  of  course  vastly 
greater,  for  almost  every  benevolent  institution  naturally  seeks  the 
aid  of  the  church,  and  that  aid  is  willingly  given,  not  only  from 
charitable  motives,  but  also,  we  may  assume,  on  account  of  the 
enormous  influence  thence  accruing  among  the  masses  of  the  popu¬ 
lation  who  are  the  beneficiaries,  and  this  is  especially  felt  in  the 
manufacturing  centres  and  amid  the  periodical  crises  attendant  upon 
modern  financial  and  industrial  development.  The  creches  where 
babies  are  kept  while  their  mothers  are  at  the  factory  are  presided 
over  by  nuns ;  the  distribution  of  bread  and  soup  at  the  Bureaux 
de  Bienfaisance  is  made  by  nuns ;  the  neglected  and  wretched  little 
children  who  are  sent  to  the  infant  schools  are  washed  and  tended 
by  nuns  and,  in  fact,  whatever  tender,  or  humane,  or  charitable 
influence  reaches  the  proletaire  in  his  grieving  and  despairing 
wretchedness,  almost  necessarily  comes  to  him  through  some  channel 
connected  with  a  religious  order. 

A  much  more  complex  question,  however,  is  presented  by  the 
numbers  and  the  activity  of  the  orders  devoted  to  education.  While 
giving  due  weight  to  the  purely  benevolent  impulses  which  lead  so 
many  to  undertake  the  task  of  training  the  young,  and  while  freely 
acknowledging  the  vast  amount  of  good  arising  from  the  education, 
in  so  many  cases  gratuitous,  of  those  who  might  otherwise  remain 
in  the  darkness  of  ignorance,  the  inquirer  cannot  shut  his  eyes  to 
other  considerations.  The  eagerness  with  which  the  church  seeks  to 
acquire  for  itself  the  direction  of  the  docile  mind  of  childhood  shows 
how  fully  it  is  alive  to  the  importance  of  this  most  fruitful  source  of 


1  N.  Y.  Nation,  May  29th,  1879.  It 
is  to  the  Paris  correspondence  of  this 
journal  that  I  am  indebted  for  most  of 


the  details  respecting  the  recent  struggle 
between  the  religious  orders  and  the 
state. 


EDUCATIONAL  MONACHISM. 


617 


influence.  Previous  to  1849,  the  educational  system  of  France  was, 
nominally  at  least,  in  the  hands  of  the  State,  though  even  then  the 
church  had  made  large  inroads  upon  its  province.  The  leading  in¬ 
strumentality  in  this  was  the  congregation  of  the  Freres  des  Ecoles 
ChretieJines,  founded  in  1680  by  the  Abbe  de  la  Salle,  for  the 
gratuitous  instruction  of  the  poor,  and  Frere  Philippe,  the  General 
of  the  Order,  testified  in  1849  before  a  parliamentary  committee  that 
the  body  then  consisted  of  3300  members  with  200,000  children 
under  their  care.  The  spread  of  communism  among  the  people,  as 
manifested  in  the  overthrow  of  the  monarchy,  alarmed  the  conserva¬ 
tives,  and  one  of  the  first  acts  of  the  Republic  under  Louis  Napoleon 
was  to  encourage  by  the  Loi  Falloux  the  efforts  of  the  church  to 
extend  its  operations.  How  successful  was  the  attempt  is  shown  by 


a  comparison  of  the  statistics  of  twenty  years. 

1843.  1863. 

Religious  of  both  sexes  engaged  in  primary  teaching,  16,958  46,840 

Number  of  primary  schools  under  their  direction,  .  7,590  17,206 

Number  of  scholars  in  these  schools, ....  706,917  1,610,674 

Children  in  salles  d'asile ,  under  sisterhoods,  .  .  301,536 


By  1861,  in  the  next  grade  of  schools,  the  religious  orders  had 
55,151  male  pupils,  while  those  in  the  government  institutions  of 
similar  class  numbered  only  63,291.  In  1865  the  whole  number  of 
children  between  the  ages  of  7  and  12  in  France  was  4,018,427 ; 
while,  two  years  previous,  out  of  2,265,576  boys  attending  school, 
443,732  were  in  institutions  conducted  by  the  religious  orders,  and 
of  2,070,612  girls,  no  less  than  1,166,942,  or  more  than  half,  were 
under  the  care  of  sisterhoods. 

This  enormous  and  rapidly  increasing  proportion  shows  how  largely 
the  coming  generation  is  trained  under  monkish  influences,  and 
justifies  the  efforts  made  by  the  Ferry  ministry,  after  the  over¬ 
throw  of  the  reactionary  government  of  MacMahon,  to  check  the 
growth  of  these  schools.  The  religious  orders  are  bound  to  a  pecu¬ 
liar  obedience  to  the  Holy  See ;  all  other  bonds,  whether  of  family 
or  of  country,  are  as  nothing  in  comparison.  The  monk  who  con¬ 
scientiously  regards  his  vows  cannot  be  a  citizen,  or  be  fitted  to 
train  future  citizens.  The  congregation,  for  instance,  of  the  Freres 
de  la  Sainth-Croix  is  largely  engaged  in  educating  and  furnishing 
teachers ;  and  among  the  secret  statutes  of  the  order  is  one  forbid¬ 
ding  its  members  to  admit  the  existence  of  any  opinion,  whether  in 


618 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


politics,  theology,  or  religion,  contrary  to  the  opinion  of  Rome.1 
What  are  the  political  opinions  of  Rome  may  readily  be  found  in  the 
Syllabus  of  1864,  among  its  anathemas  directed  against  freedom  of 
thought  and  of  the  press,  against  any  liberty  which  threatens  to 
abridge  the  temporal  power  of  the  hierarchy  or  to  limit  its  absolute 
authority,  and  indeed  against  the  simplest  toleration  in  the  matter  of 
religious  belief.  That  these  are  in  fact  the  principles  which  govern 
education  in  clerical  schools  was  shown  during  the  debates  on  the 
Ferry  laws  in  1879,  by  M.  Ferry,  who  had,  after  some  difficulty, 
procured  copies  of  text-books  used  in  them,  and  who  quoted  from 
them  passages  praising  feudal  rights  and  reviling  the  Revolution, 
justifying  the  Inquisition  and  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
denouncing  civil  marriage  as  concubinage,  alluding  to  religious 
toleration  as  a  temporary  necessity,  and  inculcating  the  doctrine  of 
the  submission  of  the  state  to  the  church.  It  needs  no  argument  to 
show  that  institutions  which  teach  such  principles  as  these  are  not 
fit  to  be  trusted  with  the  training  of  those  who  are  to  constitute  a 
self-governing  Republic. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  evil  arising  from  the  successful  efforts  made 
by  the  church  through  its  monastic  legions  to  control  the  education 
of  France.  The  enormous  demand  for  recruits  to  fill  the  rapidly 
growing  ranks  of  its  army  of  teachers  exceeded  its  capacity  to  provide 
suitable  material,  whether  as  regards  mental  or  moral  training.  In 
its  desire  to  favor  the  growth  of  clerical  schools,  the  Second  Empire 
waived  in  favor  of  the  religious  orders  the  rigorous  examinations 
required  of  the  laity  as  a  condition  precedent  to  employment  as 
teachers.  The  supervision  of  the  state  being  thus  withdrawn,  dis¬ 
cretion  was  left  with  those  whose  unworldly  duties  can  scarcely  be  sup¬ 
posed  to  render  them  competent  judges,  and  that  discretion  has  been 
necessarily  much  abused.  It  is  related  by  Mdlle.  Daubie,  herself 
an  instructress  of  high  reputation,  that  when  she  was  eight  years  old 
she  was  applied  to,  by  a  woman  employed  in  tending  cows,  to  teach 
her  the  catechism,  and  within  a  year  she  was  surprised  to  find  her 
whilom  pupil  suddenly  reappear  as  a  sister,  duly  authorized  to  teach. 
It  is  computed  that,  among  the  male  religious  employed  in  teaching, 
not  more  than  one  in  ten  has  the  brevet,  which  would  be  indispensable 
to  them  if  they  were  laymen ;  while,  of  the  sisters  engaged  in  instruc- 


1  “Regie  91. — Qu’il  ne  laisse  entrevoir 
aucune  opinion,  soit  politique,  soit  the- 
ologique  ou  religieuse,  contraire  aux 


opinions  du  saint-siege.  ” — Sauvestre, 
op.  cit.  215. 


EVILS  OF  MONASTIC  EDUCATION. 


619 


tion,  out  of  8000  superiors  of  institutions,  only  about  1000  are 
brevetees ,  and,  of  their  assistants,  not  more  than  one  per  cent,  are 
so  qualified. 

If  the  mental  qualifications  of  these  educators  were  thus  disre¬ 
garded,  their  moral  characters  "were  equally  relieved  from  proper 
scrutiny;  and  this,  combined  with  the  temptations  inseparable  from 
the  celibate  system,  has  not  infrequently  led  to  the  most  shocking 
results.  The  enormous  influence  of  the  ecclesiastical  establishment, 
working  upon  the  bureaus  of  the  government,  the  officials  of  justice, 
and  the  press,  was  usually  sufficient  to  prevent  much  public  scandal 
under  Louis  Napoleon  and  Marshal  MacMahon;  but  a  list  of  the 
prosecutions  reported  in  the  newspapers  from  1861  to  April,  1879, 
collected  by  Dr.  Wahu,1  shows  about  fifty  cases  in  which  the  male 
teachers  had  abused  the  children  under  their  charge,  many  of  these 
cases  being  of  appalling  turpitude.  As  eleven  of  these  occurred 
during  the  first  three  months  of  1879,  it  may  reasonably  be  con¬ 
cluded  that  equal  freedom  on  the  part  of  the  public  prosecutors  and 
the  press  during  the  previous  eighteen  years  vrould  have  produced  a 
vastly  larger  number  of  convictions ;  and  not  the  least  deplorable 
feature  of  the  matter  is  that  in  more  than  one  case  the  culprit  had 
been  previously  transferred  several  times  from  one  institution  to 
another,  giving  grounds  for  the  assumption  that  the  authorities  were 
cognizant  of  his  wickedness,  and  preferred  to  allow  him  to  spread 
contagion  throughout  different  communities  rather  than  incur  the 
scandal  of  punishing  him. 

As  illustrative  of  two  phases  of  the  subject,  I  may  briefly  refer  to 
two  cases  from  among  a  number  which  were  brought  to  light  in  1861, 
as  the  result  of  the  efforts  of  a  writer  bold  enough  to  brave  the  anger 
of  the  church,  and  who  found  a  journal  with  the  hardihood  to  second 
his  efforts.  One  of  these  occurred  at  Saintes,  in  a  school  under  the 
care  of  the  Freres  des  Ecoles  Chretiennes.  Out  of  300  boys,  one 
hundred  had  been  the  victims  of  the  monsters  to  whom  they  had  been 
confided,  and  who  enjoyed  with  a  Satanic  zest  the  corruption  wThich 
they  spread  through  so  many  households.  The  evil  became  rumored 
abroad,  but  no  one  dared  to  attack  the  members  of  so  powerful  an 
order,  until  an  old  soldier  who  held  the  post  of  gendarme  found  the 
evil  in  his  family.  Unused  to  prudence,  he  complained.  The  local 
board  of  supervision,  afraid  of  compromising  the  “  interests  of  re- 


1  Le  Pape  et  la  Societe  Moderne,  Paris,  1879,  pp.  416-487. 


620 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


ligion,”  endeavored  to  hush  up  the  affair,  hut  the  prefect,  fortunately, 
was  of  different  temper,  and  took  up  the  matter  energetically.  The 
guilty  brethren  disappeared,  and  their  superior  professed  to  know 
nothing  about  them,  while  the  gendarme  was  soon  afterwards  dis¬ 
missed  from  his  post,  and  the  matter  passed  over,  leaving  nothing 
behind  it  but  a  hundred  ruined  youths  and  corrupted  families.  The 
other  case  is  that  of  Frere  Cleonique  at  Jonsac,  whose  offences  were 
too  fully  proved  for  denial,  and  whose  counsel  on  his  trial  could  only 
urge  in  palliation  that  the  responsibility  rested,  not  on  his  client, 
but  on  the  system  which  employed  such  creatures  and  exposed  them 
to  temptations  beyond  their  strength — “ Gentlemen,’’  said  he,  “look 
at  my  client.  What  is  he,  after  all  ?  A  clown,  a  goitreux ,  almost 
a  cretin;  surely  less  than  a  man !  He  was  herding  flocks,  when 
they  undertook  to  persuade  him  that  he  had  a  call.  A  black  gown 
was  thrown  on  his  shoulders,  and,  behold  him  in  charge  of  a  school ! 
Such  a  nature  could  only  attempt  that  career  through  pride  and  sloth. 
There  he  is,  utterly  untrained,  ignorant  of  everything  in  life,  and  yet 
charged  with  teaching  our  children  how  to  live !  .  .  .  Do  you  wonder 
that  one  day  the  beast  awoke  in  that  soul,  into  which  nothing  lofty 
had  been  instilled  ?  .  .  .  There  he  is  before  you,  but  who  is  really 
to  blame;  who  is  the  criminal?  Assuredly  not  this  poor  wretch, 
involved  in  the  blindest  ignorance,  whom  they  drew  from  his  ob¬ 
scurity,  and  to  whom  they  taught  nothing  before  confiding  to  him 
the  grave  responsibility  of  training  youth.”  It  is  satisfactory  to 
add  that  this  ingenious  plea  was  unsuccessful,  and  that  the  brute  was 
sentenced  to  imprisonment  at  hard  labor — but  he  had  been  seven 
years  at  Jonsac,  and  his  victims  counted  by  the  hundred.1 

It  was  during  these  prosecutions,  in  1861,  that  Frere  Philippe, 
the  General  of  the  “ Freres  des  Bcoles  Chretiennes ,”  was  stimulated 
to  issue  a  secret  circular,  in  which,  after  alluding  to  two  previous 
ones  of  the  same  nature  sent  out  in  1854  and  1860,  he  said  that  the 
time  had  come  to  speak  plainly  about  the  “  horrible  disease  which 
devours  the  Order,”  and  which,  under  the  investigations  then  in  pro¬ 
gress,  was  leading  one  brother  after  another  to  prison,  and  was  sow¬ 
ing  scandal  broadcast.  But  the  prosecutions  died  away,  and  matters 
soon  resumed  their  usual  course.  It  is  but  two  or  three  years  since 
that  the  Bien-Public ,  in  comparing  the  morality  of  the  lay  schools 


1  Sauvestre,  op.  cit.  pp.  123-4. 


REACTION  AGAINST  MONACHISM. 


621 


with  those  in  charge  of  the  church,  was  able  to  produce  these  sta¬ 
tistics  : — 

In  10,000  lay  schools,  5.44  crimes  and  22.29  offences  ( delits ). 

In  10,000  church  schools,  65.10  “  and  90.50  “  “ 

Nor  are  these  shocking  cases  confined  to  France.  In  1873  a  similar 
scandal  was  suddenly  brought  to  light  in  the  great  Barnabite  college 
at  Monza,  in  Lombardy,  where  there  were  more  than  300  students, 
many  of  whom  were  found  to  have  been  debauched  by  their  instructors. 
The  institution  was  promptly  closed  by  the  authorities,  hut  the  chief 
criminals,  Father  Stanislas  Cereza,  the  principal,  and  Father  Villa, 
one  of  his  assistants,  escaped,  having  prudently  disappeared  at  the 
first  rumors  of  the  development. 

It  was,  however,  political  considerations  rather  than  moral  ones 
which  led  the  French  cabinet,  shortly  after  the  fall  of  MacMahon 
had  destroyed  the  alliance  between  church  and  state,  to  commence  an 
attack  on  the  clerical  schools.  The  measure  proposed  in  what  were 
known  as  the  Ferry  laws  was  certainly  not  a  sweeping  one,  for  the 
seventh  article,  on  which  the  struggle  took  place,  simply  provided 
that  “no  man  can  be  allowed  to  direct  an  establishment  of  public  or 
private  teaching,  of  whatever  order  this  establishment  may  be,  if  he 
belongs  to  a  non-authorized  religious  congregation;”  and  an  official 
list  of  the  non-authorized  congregations  showed  them  to  consist  merely 
of  1502  Jesuits,  327  Dominicans,  222  Marists,  230  Benedictines, 
193  Eudists,  65  Basilians,  22  Barnabites,  14  Oratorians,  91  mem¬ 
bers  of  the  Congregation  of  St.  Bertin,  and  105  of  the  Congregation 
of  the  Sacre  Coeur  de  Jesus .  The  measure,  in  fact,  was  aimed  rather 
at  the  Jesuits  than  at  the  others;  but  clerical  influence  was  as  yet 
too  strong,  and  after  a  discussion,  which  lasted  for  about  nine  months, 
this  section  of  the  law  was  rejected  by  the  Senate.  Jules  Ferry 
accepted  the  defeat,  but  at  once  announced  that  the  existing  statutes 
against  the  Jesuits  and  other  unauthorized  orders  would  be  enforced 
— a  declaration  which  received  the  approval  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies.  Within  a  fortnight,  on  March  31st,  1880,  accordingly, 
two  decrees  were  issued.  The  first  of  these  expelled  the  order  of  the 
Jesuits  from  France,  giving  them  until  June  30th  to  dissolve,  and 
allowing  a  further  delay  until  August  30th  for  the  closing  of  their 
schools  and  colleges,  in  order  not  to  inconvenience  the  students  by 
dispersing  them  before  the  usual  period  of  vacation.  The  other 
decree  called  upon  all  non-authorized  congregations  within  three 
months  to  take  the  necessary  steps  to  obtain  the  verification  and 


622 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


ratification  of  their  statutes  and  regulations,  and  the  legal  recog¬ 
nition  of  their  establishments,  and  promising  that  when  this  vras 
done  provisions  for  the  male  congregations  should  be  made  by  special 
acts,  while  those  for  female  communities  should  be  by  either  special 
acts  or  by  simple  decrees.  The  enforcement  of  the  existing  laws 
was  threatened  against  all  which  should  neglect  within  the  given 
period  to  apply  for  authorization  with  all  the  prescribed  details. 
Now,  the  laws  required  that  the  superiors  of  all  orders  should  he 
residents  of  France,  and  that  all  congregations  should  submit  in 
spiritual  matters  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  episcopal  ordinaries,  while, 
in  fact,  the  more  important  orders  have  foreign  superiors  and  are 
independent  of  episcopal  jurisdiction.  It  was  distasteful  in  the  last 
degree  to  submit  to  this,  and  the  indisposition  to  do  so  was  strength¬ 
ened  by  the  prospect  that  each  congregation  would  come  before  the 
Chambers  as  the  subject  of  a  special  debate,  in  which  their  regula¬ 
tions  would  be  discussed,  with  very  slender  prospect  of  ultimately 
obtaining  the  desired  permission,  since  a  special  act  would  confer  on 
them  the  right  to  hold  real-estate — a  right  which  many  members, 
even  of  the  Catholic  Right,  -were  not  prepared  to  grant  them. 

The  result  of  the  first  decree  was  that  at  the  dates  appointed  the 
Jesuit  establishments  and  colleges  were  closed,  wfith  but  a  faint  show 
of  passive  resistance ;  but,  as  the  members  were  not  personally 
exiled,  a  large  portion  of  them  remained,  and  their  colleges  were 
continued  by  placing  over  them  as  nominal  principals  influential 
laymen  under  their  control. 

The  second  decree  struck  at  5917  members  of  unauthorized  con¬ 
gregations.  Its  execution  was  postponed  in  hopes  that  the  bodies 
thus  threatened  would  endeavor  to  comply  with  the  law,  but  the  only 
concession  they  wTere  willing  to  make  was  by  putting  forth  a  declara¬ 
tion  containing  a  public  act  of  submission  to  the  constitution  and  a 
resolution  to  take  no  part  whatever  in  public  or  political  matters. 
At  last,  in  November,  1880,  the  government  found  itself  obliged  to 
employ  force,  and  the  establishments  were  closed  by  the  police,  aided 
wdiere  necessary  by  the  military.  A  general  system  of  passive  re¬ 
sistance  had  been  organized ;  doors  had  to  be  violently  broken  open, 
and  the  inmates  carried  out  through  jeering  or  sympathizing  crowds. 
The  popular  feeling,  in  fact,  had  been  worked  upon  as  far  as  possible, 
and  at  some  places,  as  at  Lyons,  civil  conflict  seemed  for  a  moment 
to  be  imminent,  while  at  Turquoing  (Nord)  even  blood  was  shed ; 
but  on  the  whole  the  crisis  passed  away  with  much  less  disturbance 


SECULARIZATION  OF  EDUCATION. 


623 


than  had  been  anticipated.  Since  then  the  growing  strength  of  re¬ 
publicanism  throughout  France,  unimpeded  bj  clerical  and  reaction¬ 
ary  efforts,  shows  how  much  slighter  a  hold  the  religious  orders  had 
on  the  popular  mind  than  had  been  supposed,  and  how  mistaken  had 
been  Napoleon  III.  in  regarding  an  alliance  with  the  church  as  a 
necessity  for  the  preservation  of  his  dynasty.  In  fact,  there  has 
been  no  banishment  of  individuals  nor  expropriation  of  property. 
Though  the  unauthorized  congregations  have  been  dissolved,  in 
accordance  with  laws  which  date  back  to  the  Ancien  Regime ,  the 
members  retain  their  property,  enjoy  all  the  rights  of  citizenship, 
and  can  perform  Mass  in  the  churches  near  their  convents — indeed, 
the  aristocracy,  which  naturally  affiliates  with  them,  has  rather  made 
a  point  of  offering  them  ostentatious  hospitality. 

The  effort  to  separate  education  from  clericalism  still  continues. 
The  execution  of  the  decrees  was  accompanied  by  the  adoption  of 
laws  establishing  government  colleges  for  women  and  providing  free 
primary  education,  and,  March  24th,  1882,  there  wTas  passed  an  act 
rendering  education  compulsory.  For  nearly  nine  months  there  had 
been  hot  debate  between  the  Deputies  and  the  Senators  over  an 
amendment  of  Jules  Simon’s,  that  instruction  should  be  given  in 
the  public  schools  on  the  duties  of  the  pupils  “  towards  God  and 
towards  their  country,”  but  the  elections  of  January,  1882,  deprived 
the  clericals  of  their  power,  the  Senate  receded  from  the  amendment, 
and  the  education  provided  for  by  the  act  is  to  be  purely  secular. 

It  may  safely  be  assumed  that  France  will  not  abandon  the  insti¬ 
tutions  thus  established  to  attacks  by  the  priesthood  such  as  the 
Belgian  clergy  habitually  make  upon  the  public  schools  of  that  king¬ 
dom.  In  a  parliamentary  debate,  February  22,  1881,  on  this  sub¬ 
ject,  it  was  stated,  without  contradiction,  that  the  cures  were  in  the 
habit  of  refusing  communion  not  only  to  the  children  who  attend 
these  schools,  but  also  to  their  parents  and  grandparents,  uncles,  and 
aunts — in  fact,  admission  to  communion  under  the  circumstances  is 
the  exception  and  refusal  is  the  rule.  Even  threats  are  made  to 
withhold  baptism  from  future  infants,  the  sacrament  is  denied  to 
dying  parents,  and  wives  are  urged  to  withdraw  from  all  sexual  rela¬ 
tions  with  their  husbands.  When  spiritual  weapons  are  insufficient, 
more  carnal  means  are  employed  by  efforts  to  ruin  the  business  of 
the  disobedient  by  a  system  of  “  Boycotting,”  wrhich  is  sometimes 
successful ;  and  the  enthusiastic  cure  of  Virginal  admitted  that  he 
had  pronounced  it  to  be  a  less  offence  to  commit  murder  than  to 


624 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY . 


vote  for  a  Liberal,  because  Liberalism  is  heresy.1  When  such  is  the 
spirit  of  the  church  at  the  present  day,  French  republicanism  may 
be  pardoned  for  desiring  to  limit  its  control  over  popular  education. 


It  only  remains  for  us  to  consider  what  is  the  present  effect  of 
celibacy  on  the  moral  condition  of  the  church,  and  whether  it  has 
succeeded,  after  fifteen  centuries  of  fruitless  effort,  in  at  last  obtain¬ 
ing  a  priesthood  whose  chastity  is  more  than  nominal.  At  the 
commencement  of  the  struggle,  the  great  apostle  of  asceticism,  St. 
J erome,  calmed  the  fears  of  those  who  dreaded  a  diminution  of  popu¬ 
lation  from  the  spread  of  vows  of  continence,  by  assuring  them  that 
few  would  be  found  to  persevere  to  the  end  in  a  task  so  difficult  as 
the  maintenance  of  virginity.2  Has,  then,  human  nature  changed 
during  the  interval,  and  has  the  church  been  justified  in  its  assertion 
at  the  council  of  Trent  that  God  would  not  withhold  the  gift  of 
chastity  from  those  who  rightly  seek  it,  or  permit  us  to  be  tempted 
beyond  our  strength  ? 3  It  is  certainly  not  so  easy  to  answer  this 
question  now,  as  we  have  seen  it  in  former  ages,  when  men  were 
more  plain-spoken  and  less  decent,  when  offences  against  morality 
were  committed  more  openly,  and  when  they  were  denounced  both 
by  the  church  and  its  enemies  with  a  distinctness  of  utterance  unfit 
for  modern  ears.  Yet  it  is  not  impossible  to  find  some  evidence 
bearing  on  the  question  which  may  enable  the  impartial  inquirer  to 
arrive  at  a  conclusion. 

The  church  is  unquestionably  violating  the  precept  “  Thou  shalt 
not  tempt  the  Lord  thy  God”  when,  in  its  reliance  that  the  gift 
of  chastity  will  accompany  ordination,  it  confers  the  sub-diaconate 
at  the  age  of  22  and  the  priesthood  at  25 4  —  or  even  earlier 
by  special  dispensation — and  then  turns  loose  young  men,  at  the  age 
when  the  passions  are  the  strongest,  trained  in  the  seminary  and 
unused  to  female  companionship,  to  occupy  a  position  in  which  they 
are  brought  into  the  closest  and  most  dangerous  relations  with  women 


1  N.  Y.  Nation,  April  21st,  1881. 

2  Noli  metuere  ne  omnes  virgines 
fiant ;  difficilis  res  est  virginitas,  et  ideo 
rara  quia  difficilis.  Incipere  plurimo- 
runi  est,  perseverare  paucorum. — Hie- 
ron.  adv.  Jovin.  i.  36. 

3  Concil  Trident.  Sess.  xxiv.  De 
Sacrament.  Matrim.  c.  ix. 

4  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxm.  De 


Reform,  c.  xii.  The  Abbe  Cbavard 
relates  (Le  Celibat  des  Pretres,  p.  269) 
that  he  once  asked  the  directors  of  a 
seminary  whether  the  age  for  assuming 
the  burdens  of  the  priesthood  ought 
not  to  be  postponed  to  the  fortieth  year, 
and  he  was  told  that  the  church  must 
have  priests  and  that  there  were  few 
indeed  who  would  submit  to  its  con¬ 
ditions  after  the  age  of  illusions  was 
passed. 


CLERICAL  MORALITY. 


625 


who  regard  them  as  beings  gifted  with  supernatural  powers  and 
holding  in  their  hands  the  keys  of  heaven  and  hell.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  ardor  with  which  the  vows  were  taken,  the  youth  thus 
exposed  to  temptations  hitherto  unknown,  finds  his  virtue  rudely 
assailed  when  in  the  confessional  female  lips  repeat  to  him  the  story 
of  sins  and  transgressions,  and  he  recognizes  in  himself  instincts  and 
passions  which  are  only  the  stronger  by  reason  of  their  whilom  repres¬ 
sion.  That  a  youthful  spiritual  director,  before  wThom  are  thrown 
down  all  the  barriers  with  which  the  prudent  reserve  of  society  sur¬ 
rounds  the  social  intercourse  of  the  sexes,  should  too  often  find  that 
he  has  over-estimated  his  self-control,  is  more  than  probable. 

This,  of  course,  is  merely  a  priori  reasoning,  and  of  itself  proves 
nothing,  except  the  extreme  imprudence  of  a  system  which  applies 
fire  to  straw  and  assumes  that  combustion  will  not  follow.  Doubtless 
there  are  cases  in  which  the  assumption  is  justified  by  the  result — 
whole  countries,  indeed,  wThere  scandals  are  few.  In  Ireland,  for 
instance,  we  rarely  hear  of  immoral  priests,  though  such  cases  would 
be  relentlessly  exposed  by  the  interests  adverse  to  Catholicism,  and 
the  proverbial  chastity  of  the  Irish  women  may  be  both  a  cause  and 
a  consequence  of  this.  In  the  United  States,  also,  troubles  of  the 
kind  only  come  occasionally  to  public  view;  but  here,  again,  the 
church  is  surrounded  by  antagonistic  churches,  the  laborers  are 
few  and  hardly  worked,  and  the  position  is  not  one  to  attract  those 
wTho  might  seek  a  life  of  sloth  and  indulgence.  At  the  same  time, 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  extreme  care  with  which  the 
church  avoids  scandal  renders  it  impossible  for  one  not  within  the 
pale  to  ascertain  what  may  really  be  the  relations  between  ecclesi¬ 
astics  and  the  female  servants  whom,  as  we  shall  see,  they  are  per¬ 
mitted  to  keep  in  their  houses. 

In  lands  where  Catholicism  is  dominant  I  fear  that  there  can  be 
little  doubt  as  to  this,  although  Ernest  Renan,  a  witness  of  unques¬ 
tionable  impartiality,  whose  clerical  training  gave  him  every  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  observation,  declares  emphatically  that  he  has  known  no 
priests  but  good  priests,  and  that  he  has  never  seen  even  the  shadow 
of  a  scandal.1  In  spite  of  the  Nicoean  canon,  on  which  the  rule  of 


1  Souvenirs  d’Enfance  et  de  Jeu- 
nesse,  Paris,  1883,  p.  139.  “  Le  fait 

est  que  ce  qu  ’on  dit  des  moeurs  cleri- 
cales  est,  selon  mon  experience,  denue 
de  tout  fondement.  J’ai  passe  treize 
ans  de  ma  vie  entre  les  mains  des 


pretres,  je  n’ai  pas  vu  l’ombre  d’un 
scandale ;  je  n’ai  connu  que  de  bons 
pretres.  La  confession  peut  avoir, 
dans  certains  pays,  de  graves  incon- 
venients.  Je  n’en  ai  pas  vu  une  trace 
dans  mon  jeunesse  ecclesiastique.” 


40 


626 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


celibacy  has  virtually  rested,  the  church,  after  a  struggle  of  more 
than  a  thousand  years,  was  forced  to  admit  the  “  subintroducta 
mulier”  as  an  inmate  of  the  priest’s  domicile.  The  order  of  Nature 
on  this  point  refused  so  obstinately  to  be  set  aside,  that  the  Council 
of  Trent  finally  recognized  women  as  a  necessary  evil,  and  only 
sought  to  regulate  the  necessity  by  forbidding  those  in  holy  orders 
from  keeping  in  their  houses  or  maintaining  any  relations  with  con¬ 
cubines  or  women  liable  to  suspicion.1  It  is  true  that  the  severe 
virtue  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo  refused  to  grant  to  a  septuagenary 
priest  a  license  for  more  than  a  year  for  the  residence  of  a  sister 
equally  aged,  and  forced  him  to  apply  annually  for  its  renewal ;  it  is 
also  true  that  the  council  of  Rome,  in  1725,  allowed  the  residence 
of  women  only  within  the  first  and  second  degrees  of  kindred;2  but 
in  modern  times  the  Tridentine  canon  has  been  interpreted  as  allow¬ 
ing  the  residence  of  female  servants  or  house-keepers,  in  view  of  the 
hardship  of  doing  without  domestics  and  the  expense  of  employing 
men.  In  order  to  meet  the  Tridentine  caution  to  avoid  suspicion, 
efforts  have  sometimes  been  made  to  define  a  minimum  “canonical” 
age  for  these  women,  varying  from  thirty  to  fifty  years,  but  usually 
placed  at  forty — a  palliative  which,  as  might  be  expected,  accom¬ 
plishes  little,  even  when,  as  is  not  always  the  case,  the  rule  is 
observed  more  scrupulously  than  by  the  device  of  dividing  the 
canonical  age  and  keeping  two  girls  of  twenty.3 


1  Concil.  Trident.  Sess.  xxv.  De 
Reform,  cap.  xiv. 

2  Convent.  Episcc.  Mediolanenss.  ann. 
1849  Sess.  in.  No.  18  (Collect.  Lacens. 
YI.  717). — Concil.  Roman,  ann.  1725 
Tit.  xvi.  c.  iii.  (Ib.  I.  372). 

3  For  the  varying  legislation  on  this 
subject  the  reader  may  refer  to  C.  Bene- 
ventan.  ann.  1693  Tit.  xvm.  c.  iii. 
(Collect.  Lacens.  I.  44). — Synod.  Ba- 
hiens.  ann.  1707  Lib.  in.  (I.  854). — 
C.  Tarracon.  ann.  1717  c.  xxxi.  (I. 
779). — C.  Avenionens.  ann.  1725  Tit. 
xxxvii.  c  iii.  (I.  554). — Synod.  Fir- 
manens.  ann.  1726  Tit.  ix.  (I.  599). — 
C.  Ebredunens.  ann.  1727  c.  v.  No.  5 
(I.  626). — Synod.  Nat.  Hungar.  ann. 
1822  De  Discip.  renov.  3  (V.  940). — 
C.  Baltimor.  IV.  ann.  1840  Deer.  x. 
(III.  72). — Conv.  Episcc.  Mediolan. 
ann.  1849  Sess.  in.  No.  18  (VI.  717). 
— C.  Turon.  ann.  1849  Deer.  xi.  i. 
(IV.  268-9). — C.  Avenionens.  ann.  1849 
Tit.  vi.  c.  v.  No.  16  (IV.  348). — C. 


Remens.  ann.  1849  Tit.  xii.  c.  ii.  (IV. 
129). — C.  Albiens.  ann.  1850  Tit.  i.  Deer, 
v.  No.  1  (IV.  411). — C.  Burdigal  ann. 
1850  T.  iv.  c.  xii.  No.  3  (IV.  588).— C. 
Bituricens.  ann.  1850  Tit. vi.  (IV.  1122). 
— C.  Tolosan.  ann.  1850  Tit.  iv.  c.  iv. 
No.  126  (IV.  1069). — C.  Senonens. 
ann.  1850  Tit.  iv.  c.  iv.  (IV.  904). — 
C.  Aquens.  ann.  1850  Tit.  v.  \  2.  c.  ix. 
No.  1  (IV.  985).— C.  Rothomag.  ann. 
1850  Deer.  xi.  No.  3-5  (IV.  525). — C. 
Lugdunens.  ann.  1850  Deer.  xvm. 
No.  1-3  (IV.  475). — Synod.  Thurlesi- 
ens.  ann.  1850  Deer.  xvn.  No.  14  (III. 
785). — Conv.  Epp.  Lauretan.  ann.  1850 
;  Sect.  i.  v.  (VI.  778). — Conv.  Epp.  Si- 
ciliae  Tit  II.  c.  i.  No.  9  (VI.  815). — 
C.  Auscitan.  ann.  1851  Tit.  iv.  c.  i. 
No.  147  (IV.  1200). — C.  Quebecens.  I. 
ann.  1851  Deer.  xiv.  (III.  615). — C. 
Westmonasteriens.  I.  ann.  1852  Deer, 
xxiv.  No.  4  (III.  939). — C.  Quebecens. 
II.  ann.  1854  Deer.  xiv.  No.  20  (III. 
652). — C.  Armacens.  ann.  1854  Deer, 
i  xxill.  (III.  852). — C.  Portus  Hispani® 


RESIDENCE  OF  WOMEN. 


627 


Few  priests,  it  may  be  assumed,  have  the  self-denial  to  live  with¬ 
out  this  female  companionship,  which  is  permitted  by  the  church  as 
a  matter  of  course.  Indeed,  the  census-paper  officially  filled  in  at 
the  Vatican  and  returned  in  January,  1882,  stated  the  population 
of  the  palace  to  be  500,  of  which  one-third  were  women.  While,  of 
course,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  relations  between  these  women 
and  the  grave  dignitaries  of  the  papal  court  may  not  be  perfectly 
virtuous,  still,  considering  the  age  at  which  ordination  is  permitted, 
it  would  be  expecting  too  much  of  human  nature  to  believe  that,  in 
at  least  a  large  number  of  cases  among  parish  priests,  the  compan¬ 
ionship  is  not  as  fertile  of  sin  as  we  have  seen  it  to  be  in  every 
previous  age  since  the  ecclesiastic  has  been  deprived  of  the  natural 
institution  of  marriage.  The  “niece”  or  other  female  inmate  of 
the  parsonage  throughout  Catholic  Europe  still  excites  the  smile 
of  the  heretic  traveller,  and  is  looked  upon  as  a  matter  of  course 
by  the  parishioner,  while  the  prelates,  content  if  open  scandal  be 
avoided,  affect  to  regard  the  arrangement  as  harmless,  knowing  that 
it  serves  as  a  preventive  of  more  flagrant  and  more  public  trouble, 
though  the  fact  that  this  companionship  is  made  the  subject  of  dis¬ 
cussion  and  regulation  at  virtually  every  council  or  synod  or  epis¬ 
copal  convention  held  by  the  church  shows  that  privately  it  is  recog¬ 
nized  as  a  necessary  evil  at  best.  Yet  the  old  sophistry  is  not 
forgotten,  which  proves  that  such  sin  is  less  than  the  infraction  of 
ecclesiastical  laws.  In  a  tract  in  favor  of  celibacy,  published  at 
Warsaw  in  1801,  with  the  extravagant  laudation  of  the  authorities, 
argument  is  gravely  made  that  as  priestly  marriage  is  incestuous, 
such  adultery  is  vastly  worse  than  simple  licentiousness,  the  latter 
being  only  a  lapse  of  the  flesh,  while  marriage  would  be  schism  and 
arrogant  disobedience,  involving  sin  of  a  far  deeper  dye.1 

It  would,  of  course,  be  vain  to  expect,  at  the  present  day,  from 
the  rulers  of  the  church,  the  outspoken  candor  of  the  Middle  Ages, 


ann.  1854  Sect.  II.  No.  5  (III.  1100-1). 
— C.  Ravennat.  ann.  1855  P.  iv.  c.  iv. 
No.  3  (VI.  198).— C.  Scti.  Ludovici  II. 
ann.  1858  Deer.  vn.  (III.  318). — C. 
Viennens.  ann.  1858  Tit.  v.  c.  vi.  (V. 
197). — C.  Strigonens.  ann.  1858  Tit. 
vi.  No.  9  (Y.  53). — C.  Yenetic.  ann. 
1859  P.  ii.  c.  xvii.  No.  10-11  (YI. 
317). — C.  Urbinatens.  ann.  1859  P.  n. 
Tit.  vii.  No.  148  (VI.  51). — C.  Pragens. 
ann.  1860  Tit.  i.  c.  vi.  No.  1  (Y.  426). 
— C.  Coloniens.  ann.  1860  Tit.  n.  c. 


xxxiv.,  xxxviii.  (Y.  378-80). — C.  Cin- 
cinnatiens  III.  ann.  1861  Deer.  ix. 
(III.  226). — C.  Coloniens.  ann.  1863 
Tit.  iv.  c.  iv.  (Y.  670). — C.  Quitens. 
ann.  1869  Deer.  iv.  No.  2  (VI.  403). 
— C.  Ultrajectens.  ann  1865  Tit.  vm. 
c.  iv.  (Y.  905). — C.  PI.  Baltimor.  II. 
ann.  1866  Tit.  in.  c.  vi.  No.  164  (III. 
446). — C.  Halifaxiens.  ann.  1868  Deer. 
xviii.  (III.  751). 

1  De  Sacerdotum  Ccelibatu  Doctrina 
Varsoviae,  1801  pp.  62-3. 


628 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


when  evils  were  denounced  openly  and  in  the  coarsest  terras.  In 
those  days  councils  could  speak,  because  none  but  those  connected 
with  the  church  were  likely  to  be  cognizant  of  their  proceedings; 
while,  in  the  16th  and  17th  centuries,  the  immorality  of  ecclesiastics 
was  so  notorious  that  no  harm  could  arise  from  admitting  it  in  the 
efforts  made  for  its  correction.  In  modern  times,  however,  when  an 
external  veil  of  decency  is  to  be  maintained  before  the  eyes  of  an¬ 
tagonistic  critics,  when  scandal  is,  of  all  things,  to  be  avoided,  and 
when  the  proceedings  of  ecclesiastical  bodies  are  carefully  revised  at 
Rome,  before  they  are  allowed  to  become  public,  with  the  conscious¬ 
ness  that  they  may  be  spread  by  the  press  before  a  world  of  hostile 
mockers,  ready  to  jeer  at  the  woes  of  the  church,  only  the  most 
guarded  allusions  can  be  made  to  such  subjects,  and  these  only  when 
the  case  is  urgent.  When,  therefore,  we  see  that  almost  every  council 
held  in  modern  times  has  deemed  it  necessary  to  insist  on  the  supreme 
importance  of  preserving  chastity — lying,  swearing,  stealing,  and 
other  sins  not  being  even  alluded  to ;  wffien  the  caution  against  undue 
familiarity  with  women,  even  devotees,  is  constantly  urged ;  and 
when  the  relations  between  the  priest  and  his  servant  are  frequently 
indicated  by  directions  that  he  must  not  admit  her  to  companionship 
at  the  table,  or  on  walks  and  journeys,  and  especially  not  in  visiting 
fairs  and  merrymakings,  it  would  be  difficult  not  to  recognize  under 
this  guarded  phraseology  an  admission  of  the  actual  relationship 
existing  between  the  good  pastors  and  their  female  inmates,  and  a 
friendly  warning,  si  non  caste  saltern  cante.1 

It  is  not  often  that  we  can  obtain  an  inside  view  of  these  matters, 
especially  from  a  source  that  is  at  once  well  informed  and  not  hostile, 
but  such  a  view,  confirming  the  worst  suspicions,  is  afforded  by  an 
indignant  remonstrance  addressed,  in  1832,  to  Monseigneur  Sterckx, 
Archbishop  of  Mechlin,  by  the  Abbe  Helsen,  who  for  twenty-five 
years  had  been  a  popular  preacher  in  Brussels.2  The  abbe  calls 
upon  his  prelate  to  enforce  the  Tridentine  canon  by  banishing  the 
women  who  are  universally  inmates  of  the  houses  of  priests,  and 
thus  put  a  stop  to  the  sin  and  the  scandal  which  destroy  the  influence 
of  the  church  and  spread  immorality  among  the  faithful.  Even  the 


1  See  previous  note  for  warnings  of 
this  kind.  The  council  of  Ausch,  in 
1851,  even  ventures  to  allude  to  the 
grave  inconveniences  which  may  arise 
from  the  residence  of  a  sister  or  aunt, 
if  young,  and  if  there  is  not  also 


the  mother  or  a  female  servant  in  the 
house. 

2  Hehen,  Avis  a  l’Archeveque  de 
Malines,  Monseigneur  Sterckx,  sur  les 
abus  du  Celibat  des  Pretres,  4to.  Brux¬ 
elles,  1833. 


THE  LAITY  DEMORALIZED  BY  THE  CLERGY.  629 

bishops  and  dignitaries  of  the  church  are  not  spared,  and  the  arch¬ 
bishop  himself  is  summoned  to  dismiss  the  “  Petronilla”  who  had 
accompanied  him  from  the  curacy  of  Bouchout  to  the  cathedral  of 
Antwerp,  and  from  Antwerp  to  the  metropolitan  seat  of  Mechlin.1 
Throughout  this  plain-spoken  epistle  the  author  assumes  as  a  matter 
of  course  not  only  that  the  relations  between  the  clergy  and  their 
servants  are  guilty,  but  that  they  are  so  recognized  by  every  one — 
so  notorious,  indeed,  as  to  need  no  proof — and,  as  a  natural  conse¬ 
quence,  he  regards  the  priesthood  as  a  source  of  infection  destructive 
to  public  morals.  The  cure  is  to  be  found  in  putting  a  stop  to  these 
irregular  unions — “  If  women  were  forever  banished  from  the  houses 
of  ecclesiastics  vowed  to  celibacy,  I  think  we  should  not  see  so  great 
a  number  of  prostitutes  who  ply  their  trade  at  night  in  our  great 
cities,  nor  so  many  illegitimate  children  who  curse  their  destiny  as 
they  multiply  more  and  more  around  us.  We  ridicule  the  Seraglio 
of  the  Grand  Turk  and  the  polygamy  of  the  Moslem,  but  they  too, 
on  their  side,  ridicule  the  infinite  number  of  strumpets  with  whom 
Christian  Europe  is  deluged,  and  the  custom  of  keeping  as  many 
concubines  as  can  be  afforded.  Whence  comes  to  us  this  shameful 
trade,  so  hurtful  to  society,  which  is  found  under  our  religion  more 
than  under  any  other  ?  We  dare  not  doubt  that  it  is  the  result  of 
our  own  misconduct ;  we  dare  not  accuse  only  the  heretics  and  the 
philosophers  of  modern  times ;  no,  no  !  the  most  poisonous  spring  is 
in  us,  among  us,  wTith  us,  and  it  will  not  dry  up  without  us.  Let 
us  blush  to  our  eye-balls ;  let  us  hide  ourselves  from  public  sight ! 
Oh  for  the  times  and  the  virtues  of  the  primitive  church !  Why 
come  ye  not  again?”2  That  this  sort  of  scarcely  veiled  concubinage 
is,  in  fact,  a  fruitful  source  of  prostitution  can  scarcely  be  doubted 
if,  as  Helsen  asserts,  the  ordinary  custom  is,  when  one  of  these 
priest’s  servants  becomes  pregnant  and  cannot  be  saved  by  a  prudent 
absence,  to  dismiss  her  and  take  another,  perhaps  younger  and  more 
attractive ;  and  that  this  may  occur  repeatedly  without  the  ecclesi¬ 
astic  being  subjected  to  any  special  annoyance  or  supervision — unless, 
indeed,  he  is  so  ill-advised  as  to  take  pity  on  the  unfortunate  girl  and 
refuse  to  send  her  away.  In  that  case  he  becomes  a  public  concubi- 
narian,  liable  to  the  canonical  penalties,  with  which  he  is  sometimes 
disciplined.  As  Helsen  indignantly  exclaims,  “  Would  the  Mahom¬ 
etans  tolerate  such  infamy  in  their  fakirs  and  dervishes  ?  The  Japa- 


1  Helsen,  pp.  19-20. 


2  Ibid.  pp.  74-5. 


630 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


nese,  the  Chinese,  the  Hindus  in  their  bonzes  ?  The  pagans  in  their 
Vestals  ?  Our  ancestors  in  their  Druids  ?  Even  the  Jews  and  Prot¬ 
estants  have  blushed  for  it,  since  they  advise  their  Rabbis  and  min¬ 
isters  to  marry  rather  than  thus  to  contaminate  themselves.” 1  Helsen 
does  not  fail  to  allude  to  the  public  familiarity  of  these  servants  with 
their  employers — the  familiarity  condemned  in  almost  the  same  words 
by  many  of  the  councils  cited  above — and  it  would  seem  the  extreme 
of  Pyrrhonism  to  doubt  that  almost  universal  concubinage  is  toler¬ 
ated,  even  where  on  the  surface  there  are  no  public  scandals  to  attract 
the  attention  of  the  malicious. 

Testimony  of  the  same  nature  exists  as  to  Italy,  where  the  up¬ 
heaval  of  the  last  quarter  of  a  century  has  created  discussion  and 
brought  forth  statements  of  facts  and  opinions  which  reveal  to  some 
extent  the  internal  condition  of  the  church.  That  immorality  should 
be  prevalent  would  seem  to  be  inevitable,  if  only  from  the  overgrown 
number  of  the  clergy,  which  has  been  fostered  by  the  ambition  of 
the  church.  In  Rome  itself,  by  the  census  of  July  1st,  1867,  there 
were  no  less  than  7404  ecclesiastics  of  both  sexes,  in  a  population  of 
215,573,  or  one  to  every  29  inhabitants  of  all  ages.  In  the  Pon¬ 
tifical  States,  prior  to  their  absorption  by  the  Kingdom  of  Italy,  the 
proportion  was  one  to  every  55  of  the  population.  In  Northern 
Italy,  embracing  the  Pontificate,  the  Duchies,  Lombardo-Venetia  and 
Piedmont,  there  was  one  to  every  140  ;  while  in  the  whole  of  Italy, 
exclusive  of  the  Pontificate,  in  24,231,860  souls  there  were  174,001 
ecclesiastics,  showing  a  proportion  of  one  to  239.  These  numbers 
are  so  wholly  beyond  the  spiritual  needs  of  the  people  that  it  is 
evident  that  an  ecclesiastical  career  must  be  sought  by  thousands 
who  have  no  vocation  for  a  life  of  abstinence  and  self-denial ;  while 
even  among  those  who  are  induced  in  the  fervor  of  youth  to  bind 
themselves  by  the  irrevocable  vow  of  chastity,  there  must  be  other 
thousands  who  find  too  late  that  they  have  over-estimated  their 
strength.  That  passions  thus  denied  their  appropriate  relief  in  the 
institution  of  marriage  should  degenerate  often  into  brutal  license,  is 
too  natural  to  excite  special  wonder.2 


1  Helsen,  pp.  13,  16,  18,  100. 

2  The  comparative  strength  of  the 
ecclesiastical  militia  is  an  important 
element  in  considering  the  condition  of 
the  church  and  its  influence  on  the 
laity.  I  have  already  quoted  statistics 
with  regard  to  France,  Belgium,  and 


Austria,  and  will  here  append  those 
for  some  of  the  other  states  and  cities  of 
Europe  as  given  by  Prof,  von  Schulte 
in  his  work  on  the  Newer  Catholic 
Orders  (N.  Y.  Nation,  Aug.  1st,  1872, 
p.  75). 

Prussia,  one  ecclesiastic  for  every  584 
Catholics,  of  all  ages. 


THE  ITALIAN  CLERGY. 


631 


It  would  be  difficult  to  restrain  the  appetites  of  so  vast  a  body  as 
this  even  with  the  most  determined  vigilance  on  the  part  of  prelates 
and  in  the  presence  of  the  sternest  popular  feeling,  but  both  of  these 
elements  of  repression  may  safely  be  assumed  to  be  lacking.  The 
scandal  of  the  Countess  Lambertini,  whose  suit  for  a  share  of  the 
estate  of  her  father,  Cardinal  Antonelli,  has  for  ten  years  been  before 
the  Roman  courts,  would  seem  to  show  that  even  the  virtues  of 
Pius  IX.  were  powerless  to  eradicate  the  license  which  has  been  tra¬ 
ditional  in  the  papal  court ;  and  when  a  theological  manual,  which  is 
still  largely  used  as  a  text-book  in  Catholic  seminaries,  coolly  states 
that  in  Italy  lust  is  not  regarded  as  disgraceful,1  though  we  may  hope 
that  the  standard  of  morality  has  improved  since  it  was  written,  yet 
we  cannot  expect  to  find  in  the  people  of  which  such  a  statement 
could  be  made,  the  virtue  that  would  hold  to  strict  account  a  priest¬ 
hood  whose  example  has  been  one  of  the  efficient  means  of  its  degra¬ 
dation.  That  there  is  no  restraining  influence  would  in  fact  appear 
from  the  consensus  of  opinion  of  all  who  have  had  an  opportunity 
of  forming  a  judgment. 

An  address  purporting  to  emanate  from  sixteen  bishops  to  Cardinal 
Catarini,  begging  for  an  enlargement  of  the  questions  to  be  discussed 
in  the  Vatican  Council,  assumes  the  rule  of  celibacy  to  be  the  cause, 
not  only  of  heresy  and  schism,  but  of  scandal  to  the  people  and  of 
disgrace  to  the  church.  It  speaks  of  the  disgusting  trials  which  are 
perpetually  coming  before  the  tribunals,  making  the  priestly  garb  a 
source  of  shame  to  its  wearers,  and  leading  the  people  to  regard 
them,  not  as  the  flower  of  the  soldiers  of  Christ,  but  as  a  colony 
sprung  from  Sodom.2  The  Archbishop  of  Tarento,  Giuseppe  Cape- 
celatro,  has  had  no  scruple  in  urging  the  abrogation  of  the  canon  in 
order  to  reduce  the  immense  number  of  bastards  whose  existence 
disgraces  the  church.3  In  a  similar  mood,  D.  Marco  Petronio,  a 
priest  of  Pirano,  in  Istria,  declares  that  the  boasted  chastity  of  the 


Bavaria,  one  for  every  300  Catholics. 

Germany  at  large,  one  for  every  481. 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  one  for  every  110. 

Cologne,  one  for  every  313. 

Munster,  one  for  every  61. 

Treves,  one  for  every  56. 

Paderborn,  one  for  every  33. 

In  the  old  Kingdom  of  Naples,  by 
the  census  of  1842,  there  were  55,167 
ecclesiastics  in  a  population  of  6,145,492, 
making  a  proportion  of  one  to  112 


(Penka,  Uberior  Coelibatus  Sacerdo- 
talis  Expositio,  Cracovise,  1846). 

1  In  Italia  libido  non  est  probrosa. — 
P.  Dens  Theolog.  No.  100  de  jure  et 
justitia.  (ap.  Helsen,  p.  10).  Dens  died 
in  1775. 

2  L’Esaminatore,  Firenze,  15  Set- 
temb.  1867. 

3  Prota,  Matrimonio  Civile,  Napoli, 
1864,  p.  44. 


632 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


priesthood  has  filled  the  church  with  demons  in  place  of  angels,  who 
lead  their  flocks  to  ruin  by  their  acts  and  example,1  and  Panzini 
describes  the  church  as  a  brothel  filled  with  men  ruined  by  the 
attempt  to  deprive  them  of  marriage.  When  the  latter,  indeed,  was 
on  his  trial  before  the  Inquisition,  he  asserted  that  in  consequence  of 
the  canon,  there  were  daily  committed  in  Rome  itself  more  than 
twenty  thousand  mortal  sins,  and  the  advocate  of  the  Holy  Office, 
I).  Giuseppe  Cipriani,  contented  himself  with  quietly  responding, 
“  Perhaps  not  so  many.”2  We  may  therefore  feel  confident  that 
there  is  no  exaggeration  in  the  remarks  of  the  Rev.  William  Chauncy 
Langdon,  who  had  ample  opportunities  of  observation  during  his  long 
residence  in  Italy  as  agent  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church — u  I 
learned  to  regard  a  priest,  who  had  lived  all  his  mature  life,  openly 
and  faithfully  wfith  a  woman  to  whom  he  had  not  of  course  been 
married ;  by  whom  he  had  children  now  grown  up,  and  for  all  of 
whom  he  was  faithfully  providing — with  a  relative  respect  as  one  who 
had  greatly  risen  above  the  morality  of  his  church,  and  of  the 
society  around  him,  and  whose  life  really  might  be  considered,  on 
the  dark  moral  background  behind  him,  a  source  of  relative  light.”3 

We  have  here  an  example  of  the  tolerated  concubinage  which  Helsen 
describes  as  universal  under  the  interpretation  put  upon  the  Triden¬ 
tine  canons.  It  would  seem  that  it  ought  to  be  in  some  degree  a 
safeguard  against  w’orse  offences  and  more  public  scandals,  as  a  kind 
of  substitute  for  marriage ;  but  unlawful  indulgence  weakens  the 
power  of  resistance  to  temptation  and  hardens  the  conscience  to  sin. 
In  spite,  therefore,  of  this  practical  relaxation  of  the  canons,  we  see 
the  old  troubles  of  the  relations  between  spiritual  directors  and  their 
fair  penitents  continue  to  vex  the  pious.  As  we  have  seen  with  the 
less  delicate  matter  of  the  female  companions  of  the  clergy,  the 
councils  of  modern  times  are  not  likely  to  be  outspoken  wfith  regard 
to  such  a  subject,  but  the  frequency  with  which  they  reiterate  com¬ 
mands  that  the  confessions  of  women  shall  not  be  heard,  save  in  case 
of  infirmity,  except  in  church ;  that  when  heard  elsewhere  it  shall 
always  be  with  open  doors,  and  that  in  church  the  confessional  shall 
be  in  a  spot  publicly  visible,  with  a  grating  between  the  confessor 
and  his  penitent;  that  before  and  after  sunset  the  lamps  shall  always 
be  lighted,  with  other  similar  precautions,  shows  that  the  risk  is  fully 


1  L’Esaminatore,  15  Ott.  1867. 

7  Panzini,  Pubblica  Confesaione,  pp. 
101,  357. 


3  Report  to  the  Italian  Committee  of 
the  American  Episcopal  Church  (The 
Episcopalian,  Phila.,  Sept.  11th,  1867) 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


633 


recognized  and  requires  constant  watchfulness.1  Helsen,  in  fact, 
alludes  to  the  scandals  of  the  confessional  as  a  cause  of  its  avoidance 
by  the  faithful  and  as  contributing  powerfully  to  the  growth  of 
religious  indifference  ;2  and  that  these  scandals  exist  is  not  a  mere 
matter  of  conjecture  or  inference.  If  it  were  so,  there  would  be  no 
need  for  reiterating  the  prohibitions  against  the  absolution  by  con¬ 
fessors  of  their  fair  partners  in  guilt,  which  is  still  occasionally  found 
to  be  necessary  by  modern  councils  ;3  nor  would  Pius  IX.  in  1866 
have  felt  himself  obliged  to  declare  that  the  power  granted  to  bishops 
to  absolve  in  cases  reserved  to  the  Pope  shall  not  in  future  extend  to 
offences  reserved  for  papal  absolution  by  Benedict  XIV.’s  Bull 
“  Sacramentum  Poenitentiae.”  In  fact,  the  crime  of  “ solicitation” 
must  have  become  notoriously  frequent  before  the  Congregation  of 
the  Inquisition  of  Rome  could  have  felt  impelled,  in  186T,  to  put 
forth  an  Instruction  addressed  to  all  archbishops,  bishops,  and  ordi¬ 
naries,  complaining  that  the  constitutions  on  the  subject  did  not 
receive  proper  attention,  and  that  in  some  places  abuses  had  crept 
in,  both  as  to  requiring  penitents  to  denounce  guilty  confessors,  and 
as  to  the  punishing  of  confessors  guilty  of  solicitation.  It  therefore 
urged  the  officials  everywhere  to  greater  vigor  in  investigating  such 
offences  and  gave  a  summary  of  the  practice  of  the  Inquisition  in 
regard  to  these  matters,  supervision  over  which,  it  will  be  remem¬ 
bered,  was  confided  to  the  Holy  Office  by  the  Bulls  of  Pius  IV.  and 
Gregory  XYI.  From  this  it  appears  that  when  such  a  denunciation 
is  received,  it  is  the  custom  of  the  Inquisition  to  order  the  accused 
to  be  watched,  and  not  to  prosecute  him  unless  he  is  the  subject  of 
three  separate  accusations.  When  this  number  has  been  reached,  a 
special  court  is  convened  whose  business  it  is  to  examine  whether 
there  may  not  be  some  special  enmity  on  the  part  of  the  accusers. 


1  C.  Baltimor.  I.  ann.  1829  Deer, 
xxv.  (Collect.  Lacens.  III.  30-1). — 
C.  Baltimor.  V.  ann.  1843  Deer.  ix. 
(III.  90). — C.  Australiens.  I.  ann. 
1844  Deer.  xn.  (III.  1051). — C.  Thur- 
lesens.  ann.  1850  Deer.  xn.  41  (III. 
782). — C.  Rothomagens.  ann.  1850 
Deer.  xvn.  3  (IY.  530).— C.  Tolosan. 
ann.  1850  Tit.  ill.  c.  i.  No.  70  (IV. 
1054). — C.  Casseliens.  ann.  1853  Tit. 
hi.  (III.  837). — C.  Tuamens.  ann. 
1854  Deer,  vm  (III.  860). — C.  Que- 
becens.  II.  ann.  1854  Deer.  ix.  $  7 
(III.  639). — C.  Port.  Hispaniae  ann. 
1854  Art.  iv.  No.  1,  2  (III.  1098).— 
C.  Halifaxiens.  I.  ann.  1857  Deer.  xiv. 


(III.  745). — C.  Yiennens.  ann.  1858 
Tit.  hi.  c.  vii.  (Y.  169). — C.  Coloniens. 
ann.  1860  Tit.  n.  c.  xv.  (Y.  351). — C. 
Pragens.  ann.  1860  Tit.  iv.  c.  vii. ;  Tit. 
v.  c.  viii.  (Y.  508,  543). — Synod.  Ultra- 
ject.  ann.  1865  Tit.  iv.  c.  viii.  (Y. 
830). — C.  Plen.  Baltimor.  II.  ann. 
1866  App.  X.  (III.  553). 

2  Helsen,  Abus  du  Celibat,  p.  85. 

3  C.  Tuamens.  ann.  1817  Deer.  xvn. 
(Collect.  Lacens.  III.  765). — C.  Aus¬ 
traliens.  I.  ann.  1844  Deer.  xn.  (III. 
1052-3). — C.  Remens.  ann.  1857  c.  vi. 
No.  27  (IY.  211). 


634 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


Failing  this,  the  accused  is  then  examined  under  oath,  care  being 
taken  not  to  reveal  the  names  of  the  accusers  nor  to  violate  the  seal 
of  the  confessional.  If  the  transgressor  confesses  or  is  convicted,  he 
is  deprived  forever  of  the  faculty  of  hearing  confessions  and  must 
abjure  the  heresy  implied  in  his  crime ;  but  the  severer  punishments 
decreed  by  Gregory  XY.  of  degradation  from  holy  orders  and  de¬ 
livery  to  the  secular  arm  are  not  to  be  inflicted.  Those  who  volun¬ 
tarily  confess  without  being  denounced,  even  though  they  may 
subsequently  be  denounced,  are  allowed  to  escape  with  a  suitable 
penance  and  are  ordered  merely  not  to  hear  subsequently  the  con¬ 
fessions  of  those  whom  they  have  solicited ;  confession  after  denun¬ 
ciation,  but  before  trial,  also  diminishes  the  penalty.  The  utmost 
secrecy  is  enjoined  on  all  concerned,  who  are  to  be  sworn  to  silence, 
and  so  great  a  stress  is  laid  on  this  that  even  priests  are  required  to 
take  the  oath  on  the  Gospels.  The  accuser  is  not  to  be  asked  whether 
she  consented  to  the  solicitation,  and  if  she  voluntarily  makes  such 
a  statement  it  is  not  to  be  entered  in  the  proceedings  of  the  case. 
After  the  trial  is  finished,  moreover,  the  whole  is  to  be  consigned  to 
oblivion.1  In  view  of  this  nervous  anxiety  for  secrecy,  and  the 
tenderness  manifested  throughout  to  the  offender,  it  is  surely  not 
uncharitable  to  conclude  that  scandal  is  more  feared  than  sin  in  these 
matters. 

Possibly  the  abuses  of  the  confessional  may  be  less  frequent  now 
than  they  were  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  yet  it  is 
evident  that  they  are  still  quite  prevalent  enough  to  require  a  much 
more  efficient  system  of  repression  than  they  are  at  all  likely  to 
receive.  It  is  true  that  the  questions  put  to  the  penitent  by  the  con¬ 
fessor  are  divested  of  the  extremity  of  brutal  coarseness  prescribed 
by  Bishop  Burckhardt,  but  they  are  still  sufficiently  suggestive  to 
be  revolting  to  the  pure-minded,  and  dangerous  in  no  small  degree 
to  those  who  are  likely  to  lapse.2 

What  in  reality  is  the  extent  of  these  abuses  can  only  be  a  subject 
of  conjecture.  Their  very  nature  causes  them  to  be  scrupulously 


1  Instruct.  S.  Inquisit.  Roman.  Feb. 

20,  1867,  No.  7,  11-14  (Collect. 

Lacens.  III.  553-6). 

2  For  an  extract  from  a  modern 
manual  of  the  confessional  “de  agendi 
ratione  confessarii  erga  conjugatos  et 
conjugendos,"  see  Bouvet,  De  la  Con¬ 
fession  et  du  Celibat  des  Pretres,  Paris, 


1845,  pp.  290-6.  It  will  be  remem¬ 
bered  what  excitement  was  aroused  in 
the  British  House  of  Commons  a  few 
years  since,  when  a  member  produced 
and  read  a  very  much  less  objectionable 
form  prepared  for  use  by  “  Anglican 
priests." 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


635 


concealed  not  only  by  the  principals,  but  by  those  who  may  inci¬ 
dentally  find  themselves  wronged,  and  the  church  itself  exerts  all 
its  influence  to  shield  the  guilty  and  suppress  the  scandal.  How 
powerfully  and  how  unscrupulously  its  influence  is  exerted  to  this 
end  may  be  judged  from  a  few  examples.  In  1817,  at  Availles,  in 
France,  the  sacristan  complained  to  the  mayor  that  his  daughter  was 
received  every  night  by  the  cure,  to  the  scandal  of  the  people.  The 
mayor  thus  invited  entered  the  priest’s  house  suddenly  one  night 
and  found  the  girl  in  dishabille,  hidden  in  a  corner.  He  drew  up 

an  official  statement  of  the  facts  and  forwarded  it  to  the  authorities, 

« 

and  the  response  to  this  was  his  summary  dismissal  from  office  on 
the  ground  of  having  violated  the  domicil  of  the  cure  and  increased 
the  scandal.1  More  recent  than  this  is  the  notorious  case  of  the 
Abbe  Mingrat,  who  while  cure  of  Saint-Opre,  near  Grenoble,  got 
into  trouble  by  seducing  one  of  his  penitents,  but  was  saved  from 
prosecution  and  transferred  to  Saint-Quentin.  Here  he  established 
relations  with  a  devout  young  married  woman,  which  ended  in  his 
cutting  her  in  pieces  with  his  pocket-knife  and  throwing  the  frag¬ 
ments  into  the  river  Isere.  Even  yet  no  action  would  have  been 
taken  had  not  the  mayor  of  the  place  insisted,  but  Mingrat  was 
enabled  to  escape  to  Savoy,  where  he  was  provided  for  as  a  perse¬ 
cuted  saint.2  'Similarly,  in  1877,  the  Abbe  Debra,  condemned  at 
Liege  in  default,  for  no  less  than  thirty-two  offences,  was,  after 
proper  seclusion  in  a  convent,  given  a  parish  in  Luxembourg  by  the 
Bishop  of  Namur.3  In  the  case  of  the  Abbe  Mallet,  which  occurred 
in  1861,  the  church  was  unable  to  save  the  culprit  from  punishment, 
but  did  w7hat  it  could  to  conceal  his  crimes  from  the  faithful.  As  a 
canon  of  Cambray,  he  seduced  three  young  Jewish  girls  and  procured 
their  confinement  in  convents  under  pretext  of  laboring  for  their 
conversion.  One  of  his  victims  lost  her  reason  in  consequence  of 
her  sufferings,  and  the  court  of  Douay  condemned  him  to  six  years 
at  hard  labor — a  sentence  which  w^as  announced  by  an  orthodox 
journal  thus — “  M.  le  chanoine  Mallet  de  Cambrai,  accuse  de  de- 
tournement  de  mineurs  pour  cause  de  proselytisme  religieux  a  ete 
condamne  a  six  ans  de  reclusion” — where  the  skilful  use  of  the 
masculine  “ mineurs”  and  the  characterization  of  his  offence  as 


1  Bouvet,  p.  516. 

2  Lasteyrie,  Hist,  of  Auricular  Confession,  II.  38-45. 

3  Wahu,  op.  cit.  p.  423. 


636 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


religious  proselytism  elevate  the  worst  of  criminals  into  a  martyr 
for  the  faith.1  It  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  probability  that,  as 
such  a  martyr,  he  may,  since  the  expiration  of  his  sentence,  have 
been  enjoying,  in  some  cure  of  souls,  the  opportunity  of  repeating 
his  missionary  experiments. 

It  is  evident  from  these  various  causes  that  the  criminal  records 
can  give  only  the  barest  suggestion  as  to  the  extent  of  crimes  thus 
committed  in  secret  by  a  class  shielded  by  influences  so  powerful. 
The  records  of  the  minister e  de  la  justice ,  moreover,  are  not  in 
France  open  to  the  public,  and  the  only  mode  of  obtaining  even  an 
approximate  idea  of  the  number  of  prosecutions  in  these  cases  is  to 
gather  them  from  the  journals  in  which  they  chance  to  appear  as 
items  of  news.  An  attempt  to  effect  this  has  been  made  by  Dr. 
Wahu,  and  though,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  necessarily  imperfect, 
it  affords  some  interesting  and  suggestive  statistics.  His  list  extends 
from  the  beginning  of  1861  to  April,  1879,  and  is  thus  tabulated : — 


1861  . 

.  3 

cases. 

1872 

10  cases 

1862  . 

.  2 

<< 

1873 

6  “ 

1863  . 

.  1 

u 

1875 

5  “ 

1864  . 

.  1 

u 

1876 

1  “ 

1866  . 

.  2 

<< 

1877 

16  “ 

1867  . 

.  3 

a 

1878 

35  “ 

1868  . 
1869  . 

.  3 
.  3 

it 

“  > 

1879 

(Jan.  to  April) 

19  “ 

In  all  110  cases,  of  which  nearly  one-half  were  brethren  connected 
with  educational  institutions,  referred  to  above. 

The  earlier  years  of  this  list  must  be  necessarily  imperfect,  and, 
indeed,  M.  Charles  Sauvestre  has  given  details  of  nine  cases  occur¬ 
ring  in  schools  in  1861, 2  all  which  have  escaped  Dr.  IVahu,  but, 
even  making  allowance  for  the  impossibility  of  hunting  up  all  the 
fugitive  records  of  the  past,  the  increase  during  recent  years  is  not 
to  be  regarded  as  indicating  an  increase  of  immorality.  It  rather 


1  Sauvestre,  op.  cit.  p.  144.  It  is  by 
this  policy  that  the  church  renders  itself 
responsible  for  the  evil  committed  by 
its  members.  No  human  organization 
is  without  its  share  of  the  weak  or 
vicious,  and  there  is  no  lack  of  scandals 
in  the  Protestant  denominations ;  but 
in  these  there  is  a  wholesome  jealousy 
which  usually  seeks  at  once  to  cast  out 
and  punish  the  offender.  Thus,  when, 
in  July,  1867,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Wendt,  at 
an  orphan  institution  near  Philadel¬ 


phia,  was  discovered  to  be  tampering 
with  the  virtue  of  the  children  under 
his  charge,  those  who  were  most  nearly 
connected  with  the  management  of  the 
asylum  were  the  first  to  take  steps  for 
his  prosecution,  and,  as  soon  as  the 
necessary  legal  proceedings  could  he 
had,  he  was  undergoing  a  sentence  of 
fifteen  years’  solitary  confinement,  with¬ 
out  a  voice  being  raised  in  palliation  of 
his  crime. 

2  Op.  cit.  pp.  138-44. 


ABUSE  OF  THE  CONFESSIONAL. 


637 


proves  how  powerful  were  the  forces  protecting  the  church  and  re¬ 
pressing  publicity  under  the  Second  Empire.  The  absence  of  cases 
in  1870-1  is  probably  attributable  to  the  preoccupations  of  the 
Franco-Prussian  War  and  its  consequent  troubles.  While  the  presi¬ 
dency  of  M.  Thiers,  in  1872,  yielded  10  cases,  the  reactionary  gov¬ 
ernment  of  Marshal  MacMahon  showed  but  12  cases  in  four  years. 
After  the  fall  of  MacMahon  the  number  rapidly  increases,  the  first 
four  months  of  1879  affording  no  less  than  19  cases.  Whether, 
since  then,  this  rate  of  progression  has  been  maintained  I  have  no 
means  of  knowing,  but  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  breaking  up  of  the 
unauthorized  orders,  and  the  increased  vigilance  of  the  authorities, 
aided  by  an  aroused  public  sentiment,  have  led  to  a  decrease  in  the 
dismal  record.  One  deplorable  feature  of  many  of  these  cases  is  the 
large  number  of  victims  frequently  represented  in  a  single  prosecu¬ 
tion,  and  that  the  perpetrator  had  often  been  afforded  the  opportunity 
of  continuing  his  crimes  in  successive  situations.  Thus,  in  the  affair 
of  the  Abbe  Debra,  at  Liege,  in  1877,  there  were  32  offences  charged 
against  him;  and,  of  those  occurring  in  the  single  year  1878,  frere 
Marien  was  condemned  for  no  less  than  299,  frere  Melisse,  at  Saint- 
Brice,  for  50,  frere  Climene  at  Cande,  Maze,  and  Martigne-Fer- 
chaud,  for  25,  and  frere  Adulphe  at  Guipry,  Saint-Meloir-des-Ondes, 
and  Pleurtuit,  for  67. 

It  would  be  a  libel  on  human  nature  to  assert  that  this  catalogue 
of  sin  does  not  represent  more  than  an  average  of  wickedness,  and 
the  responsibility  for  the  existence  of  so  shocking  a  condition  of 
morality  must,  at  least  in  part,  be  attributed  to  the  rule  of  celibacy, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  the  status  of  the  church  in  France  to  attract 
to  it  those  who  seek  merely  a  career  of  sloth  and  self-indulgence.  The 
income  of  the  parish  priest  in  France  only  averages  about  1100  francs 
per  annum,  and  his  position,  in  a  vast  majority  of  cases,  is  wholly 
insecure,  being  dependent  altogether  upon  the  pleasure  of  his  bishop, 
who  can  dismiss  him  at  any  moment  and  thus  deprive  him  of  all 
means  of  livelihood.  In  1866,  out  of  a  total  of  33,707  priests  in 
service,  only  3715  held  preferment  of  which  they  could  not  be  thus 
deprived  at  the  whim  of  their  superiors.1  A  profession  so  poorly 


1  One  result  of  this  is  that  there  is  a 
large  number  of  priests,  summarily  de¬ 
prived  by  their  bishops  of  the  ministry, 
who  seek  the  great  cities  to  hide  their 
poverty  or  find  some  miserable  means 
of  support.  As  all  requests  for  dispen¬ 


sation  to  marry  are  refused,  they  mostly 
live  in  concubinage  and  their  offspring 
go  to  swell  the  ranks  of  the  dangerous 
classes.  See  Chavard,  Le  Celibat  des 
Pretres,  pp.  542-48. 


638 


THE  CHURCH  OF  TO-DAY. 


rewarded,  subjected  to  discipline  nominally  so  severe,  and  held  under 
such  a  tenure,  can  scarce  be  expected  to  draw  to  its  ranks  men  of 
character  and  position ;  and  in  fact,  the  Bishop  of  Poitiers,  in  1877, 
made  in  a  pastoral  letter  the  humiliating  avowal  that  the  better  and 
more  intelligent  classes  as  a  rule  avoided  the  church,  which  was  com¬ 
pelled  to  find  its  recruits  among  the  children  of  peasants  and  laborers. 
This  is  confirmed  by  a  work  entitled  “  Le  grand  peril  de  l’eglise  de 
France,”  issued  in  1879  by  the  Abbe  Bougaud,  Vicar-General  of 
Bishop  Dupanloup  of  Orleans,  by  which  it  appears  that  the  districts 
■which  furnish  the  most  recruits  are  those  which  are  most  ignorant, 
and  that,  as  education  increases,  the  willingness  to  enter  the  church 
diminishes.  Moreover,  not  only  is  this  the  case,  but  even  the 
numbers  of  the  secular  clergy,  necessary  for  the  ministrations  of 
religion,  are  deficient.  In  his  own  diocese  of  Orleans  there  were 
180  priests  lacking,  and  in  that  of  Troyes  there  were  100  parishes 
without  cures ;  and  though  the  want  of  qualified  ministers  was  daily 
increasing,  the  pupils  in  the  seminaries  were  diminishing,  and  it 
seemed  impossible  to  fill  the  void.1  While  some  allowance  must  of 
course  be  made  for  the  character  of  the  material  thus  pressed  into 
service,  this  fact  only  increases  the  responsibility  of  those  who  persist 
in  subjecting  youths  fitted  neither  by  nature  nor  training  to  the 
tremendous  strain  of  enforced  celibacy  in  a  career  which  surrounds 
them  with  the  most  dangerous  temptations. 

Irrespective  of  questions  of  morality,  the  rule  of  celibacy  in  mod¬ 
ern  society  is  harmful  to  the  state  in  proportion  as  it  contributes  to 
the  aggrandizement  of  those  who  enforce  it.  A  sacerdotal  caste, 
divested  of  the  natural  ties  of  family  and  of  the  world,  with  interests 
in  many  respects  antagonistic  to  the  communities  in  which  its  mem¬ 
bers  reside,  with  aims  which,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  must  be 
for  the  temporal  advancement  of  its  class,  is  apt  to  prove  a  dangerous 
element  in  the  body  politic,  and  the  true  interests  of  religion,  as  well 
as  of  humanity,  are  almost  as  likely  to  receive  injury  as  benefit  at 
its  hands,  especially  when  it  is  armed  with  the  measureless  power  of 
confession  and  absolution,  and  is  held  in  strict  subjection  to  a  hier¬ 
archy.  Such  a  caste  would  seem  to  be  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  compulsory  celibacy  in  an  ecclesiastical  organization  such  as  that 
of  the  Catholic  church,  and  the  hierarchy  based  upon  it  can  scarce 


1  Wahu,  op.  cit.  pp.  154-55. 


POSITION  OF  THE  CHURCH. 


639 


fail  to  become  the  enemy  of  human  advancement,  so  long  as  the 
priest  continues  to  share  the  imperfections  of  our  common  nature. 
How  little  the  aims  of  that  hierarchy  have  changed  with  the  lapse 
of  ages  may  be  seen  in  the  pretensions  which  it  still  advances,  as  of 
old,  to  subject  the  temporal  sovereignty  of  princes  and  peoples  to 
the  absolute  domination  of  the  spiritual  power.  The  temper  of  In¬ 
nocent  III.  and  Boniface  VIII.  is  still  the  leading  influence  in  its 
policy,  and  the  opportunity  alone  is  wanting  for  it  to  revive  in  the 
nineteenth  century  the  all-pervading  tyranny  which  it  exercised  in 
the  thirteenth.  Even  the  separation  of  church  and  state  is  con¬ 
demned  as  a  heresy,  and  as  the  state  is  denied  the  privilege  of  defining 
the  limits  of  its  own  authority,  and  as  the  right  of  the  church  to  use 
force  is  asserted,  it  would  be  difficult  to  set  bounds  to  the  empire 
which  is  its  rightful  heritage,  and  of  which  it  is  deprived  by  the 
irreligious  tendencies  of  the  age.1 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  antagonism  to  the  spirit  of  modern  society 
and  civilization,  it  would  be  futile  to  anticipate  the  downfall  of  the 
church,  or  even  any  marked  modification  in  its  general  organization 
or  teaching.  It  arose  out  of  a  necessity  in  human  development. 
With  all  its  aberrations,  it  has  been,  perhaps,  the  most  efficacious 
of  agencies  for  the  improvement  and  civilization  of  man,  and  it  will 
not  disappear  or  undergo  any  essential  change  until  the  necessity  for 
its  existence  shall  have  passed  away  in  the  elevation  of  mankind. 
The  human  race  is  not  yet  prepared  for  independence  in  religious 
and  moral  thought,  and  the  masses  in  many  lands  will  long  require 
to  be  controlled  with  the  awful  authority  claimed  for  an  infallible 
church,  and  will  find  inexpressible  comfort  in  that  implicit  faith 
which  throws  upon  another  the  burden  of  sin  and  the  responsibility 
of  salvation.  The  church  thus  is  doing  its  work,  and  has  its  work 
to  do.  We  may,  indeed,  look  forward  hopefully  to  the  time  when 
the  diffusion  of  education  and  the  growth  of  intelligence  will  enable 
man  to  throw  off  the  trammels  which  still  are  requisite  to  his  well¬ 
being  and  well-doing,  and  will  seek  and  obey  his  Creator  without  an 
intermediary,  but  that  time  is  yet  far  off,  and  until  it  comes  Latin 
Christianity  has  a  mission  from  which  it  cannot  be  spared. 


1  Syllab.  Dec.  1864  No.  xix.,  xlii. ,  liv.,  lv. 


NOTE. 


A  Catholic  reviewer  of  my  first  edition  has  assured  me  that  I  am  in  error 
in  assuming  clerical  celibacy  to  be  a  point  of  faith  in  his  church.  To  use  his 
own  words — “The  writer  is  mistaken  when  he  calls  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy 
a  point  of  faith.  It  never  was  more  than  a  point  of  discipline,  as  is  keeping 
the  fasts  and  other  commandments  of  the  church,  which  may  be  modified 
by  the  same  authority  which  prescribed  them.”  That  it  may,  even  as  a 
point  of  faith,  be  abrogated  by  the  same  authority  which  defined  it,  I  do  not 
doubt,  for  everything  is  possible  to  a  General  Council  guided  by  an  infallible 
Pope ;  that  it  may  now  be  occasionally  represented  and  even  treated  as  a 
point  of  discipline,  I  think  quite  possible  and  shall  not  undertake  to  dispute, 
seeing  that  the  Greek  discipline  is  tolerated  in  that  portion  of  the  Greek 
church  which  admits  the  supremacy  of  Rome,1  but  that  the  council  of  Trent 
intended  to  make  it  a  point  of  faith  and  did  so  make  it  is  susceptible  of  the 
plainest  demonstration.  Any  one  who  will  read  the  Tridentine  canons  (ante, 
pp.  538-7)  will  see  that  their  form  is  purely  doctrinal  and  not  disciplinary. 
If  this  be  questioned,  I  may  refer  to  Chr.  Lupus,  whose  orthodoxy  and 
accuracy  in  such  matters  no  good  Catholic  can  doubt,  and  who  informs  us, 
what  indeed  is  self-evident,  that  the  council  of  Trent  classified  its  anathemas 
of  faith  as  canons,  and  its  regulations  of  discipline  as  decrees  of  reformation — 
“Sacrosancta  Tridentina  synodo  fidei  anathematismos,  canones;  morurn 
autem  regulas  appellet  decreta  reformationis  (App.  ad  Synod.  Chalced. 
Art.  i. — Opp.  II.  248),  and  the  anathemas  on  the  subject  will  be  found 
classed  under  the  title  “Doctrina  de  Sacramento  Matrimonii,”  followed  by 
disciplinary  regulations  under  the  rubric  “  Decretum  de  Reformatione  Matri¬ 
monii.”  The  form  of  the  canons  in  fact  tells  its  own  story.  The  dread 
anathema,  the  final  and  highest  condemnation  of  the  church  (“Anathema 
est  aeternge  mortis  damnatio  et  non  nisi  pro  mortali  debet  imponi  crimine  et 
jlli  qui  aliter  non  potuerit  corrigi” — Grat.  Decret.  P.  II.  Caus.  XI.  Q.  iii. 
c.  41)  is  directed,  not  against  him  who  actually  marries,  but  against  those 
who  assert  that  all  may  marry  who  have  not  the  gift  of  chastity ;  and  the 
same  condemnation  is  pronounced  on  those  who  hold  that  marriage  is  prefer- 

1  Clement.  PP.  VIII.  Instruct,  super  Bull.  Etsi  Pastoralis,  A.D.  1742,  g  vii. 
aliquibus  ritibus  Gnccorum,  A.D.  No.  16,  27,  28  (Concil.  Collect.  La- 
1595,  g  v.  No.  27. — Benedict.  PP.  XIV.  cens.  II.  449,  517j. 


CELIBACY  AS  A  POINT  OF  FAITH. 


641 


able  to  celibacy.  It  is  therefore  treated  purely  as  a  matter  of  belief,  the 
mere  discussion  of  which  is  practical  heresy.  This  was  the  form  adopted  by 
the  council  throughout  in  defining  points  of  faith,  as,  for  instance,  in  treating 
of  Original  Sin,  which  no  one  will  pretend  to  be  a  matter  of  discipline — 
‘  ‘  Si-  quis  per  J esu  Christi  Domini  nostri  gratiam  quae  in  baptismate  confertur, 
reatum  originalis  peccati  remitti  negat  ....  anathema  sit”  (Sess.  v.  de 
Peccat.  Orig.  c.  5).  Any  one  believing  in  the  validity  of  priestly  marriage 
is  therefore  not  merely  a  contemner  of  a  point  of  discipline  but  a  heretic, 
and  it  is  simply  a  libel  on  the  good  fathers  of  Trent  to  assert  that  they  would 
anathematize  as  worthy  of  perpetual  perdition  a  simple  theoretical  opinion 
on  a  matter  of  discipline. 

Their  intentions,  moreover,  as  to  this,  are  rendered  indisputable  by  the 
answer  of  Pius  Y.  in  1561,  just  before  the  final  meeting  of  the  Council,  to 
the  demand  of  Charles  IX.  for  the  concession  of  the  cup  to  the  laity.  The 
pontiff  states  that  he  had  considered  that  point  and  the  marriage  of  the 
clergy  to  be  matters  of  law,  and  therefore  capable  of  alteration  by  due  au¬ 
thority,  but  that,  on  expressing  this  opinion  in  the  last  conclave,  he  had  been 
stigmatized  as  a  Lutheran  (Le  Plat,  Monument.  Concil.  Trident.  IV.  734). 
This  is  confirmed  by  the  remarks  of  Fra  Paolo  on  the  canon  which  pronounces 
the  anathema  on  those  who  deny  that  a  non-consummated  marriage  is  dis¬ 
solved  by  the  vow  of  either  spouse  (Sess.  XXIY.  de  Sacram.  Matrim.  c.  vi. ), 
where  he  alludes  to  the  surprise  caused  by  making  it  a  point  of  faith — “  Nel 
sesto  anathematimismo  del  Matrimonio  restarono  molti  ammirati  che  fosse 
posto  per  articolo  di  fede  ”  (1st.  del  Concil.  Trident.  Lib.  viii. — Ed.  Helm- 
stadt.  II.  382). 

The  same  view  continued  long  to  be  upheld  as  orthodox.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  work  published  under  auspices  more  authoritative  than 
Andreas  Forster’s  “De  Ccelibatu  Clericorum  Dissertatio,”  a  thesis  publicly 
read  in  the  University  of  Dillingen  in  1782,  printed  by  authority,  and  dedi¬ 
cated  to  Pius  YI.  At  that  time  there  were  serious  efforts  making,  in  the 
bosom  of  the  church  itself,  to  overthrow  the  rule  of  celibacy,  and  there  was 
no  hesitation  on  the  part  of  the  ecclesiastical  rulers  to  avow  the  full  purport 
of  the  Tridentine  canons.  Forster  accordingly  does  not  scruple  to  declare  the 
truth  as  to  the  orthodox  doctrine,  nor  was  exception  taken  to  his  assertion 
by  the  authorities  whose  imprimatur  the  volume  bears.  The  condemnation 
of  those,  he  says,  who  rashly  assert  that  marriage  can  be  contracted  by  those 
in  orders  or  bound  by  solemn  vows  of  chastity  is  a  dogma  of  faith,  while  the 
definition  that  virginity  is  better  than  matrimony  is  a  dogma  of  morals — 
“Pro  certo  nos  tenemus  et  ab  omnibus  Catholicis  tenendum  esse  firmiter 
adserimus,  Ecclesiam  in  laudato  consilio  recte  omnino  definiisse  ....  melius 

41 


642 


CELIBACY  AS  A  POINT  OF  FAITH. 


esse  ac  beatius  manere  in  virginitate  aut  coelibatu  quam  jungi  matrimonio. 
Recte  porro  damnasse  eos  qui  matrimonium  a  clericis  in  SS.  Ordinibus  con- 
stitutis,  vel  a  regularibus  castitatem  solemniter  professis,  valide  posse  con- 
trahi  temere  adsererent.  Et  hoc  ultimum  ad  Dogma  Fidei,  illud  prius  ad 
Dogma  Morum  proculdubio  pertinet"  (op.  cit.  \  xxxi.  Dilingae,  1782).  In 
full  accordance  with  this  was  the  line  of  argument  adopted  by  the  advocates 
of  the  church  in  1831,  when  it  became  necessary  to  overrule  the  decision 
which  had  authorized  the  marriage  of  the  priest  Dumonteil.  They  repre¬ 
sented  that  to  permit  the  civil  marriage  of  a  priest  was,  in  fact,  to  persecute 
the  church,  because  “qui  veut  une  religion  la  veut  avec  ses  dogmes,  et  la 
chastete  du  pretre  est  un  de  ceux  de  l’eglise  Catholique”  (Bouhier  de 
l'£cluse,  de  l'Etat  du  Pretre  en  France,  p.  31). 

I  do  not  doubt  that  the  peculiar  dialectics  by  which  Bishop  Dupanloup 
explained  away  all  that  was  shocking  in  the  Syllabus  of  December,  1864 
(La  Convention  et  TEncyclique,  Paris,  1865),  might  make  out  a  tolerably 
fair  line  of  argument  to  prove  that  the  Tridentine  fathers  did  not  do  what 
they  meant  to  do.  In  the  subtle  insincerity  which  pervades  the  formulas  of 
the  Latin  church,  allowing  either  side  of  a  question  to  be  affirmed  as  oppor¬ 
tunity  serves,  the  formulas  of  Trent  constitute  no  exception.  Thus  if  the 
rule  of  celibacy  were  to  be  abrogated,  I  presume  that  it  could  be  readily 
accomplished  by  doing  away  with  the  vow  of  chastity  and  assuming  that  the 
administering  of  that  vow  is  merely  a  matter  of  discipline.  The  papal 
power  to  dispense  from  vows  is  likewise  too  well  established  to  be  called  in 
question,  as  was  shown  by  the  decision  of  the  council  of  Trent  on  that  very 
matter.  The  Latin  church,  in  fact,  has  ample  resources  to  enable  it  to  adopt 
any  line  of  policy  that  its  rulers  may  consider  adapted  to  the  exigencies  of 
the  present  or  of  the  future ;  and  if  it  should,  at  any  time,  consider  sacer¬ 
dotal  and  cenobitic  celibacy  undesirable,  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  concede 
that  it  would  find  no  difficulty  in  setting  aside  or  eluding  the  Tridentine 
anathemas;  yet  none  the  less  would  those  anathemas  remain  to  show  us 
what  was  the  position  which  it  occupied  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Mean¬ 
while  it  may  be  suggested  to  the  orthodox  who  regard  celibacy  as  merely  dis¬ 
ciplinary  that  the  church  holds  both  marriage  and  ordination  to  be  sacra¬ 
ments,  and  that  a  definition  that  the  two  are  incompatible  and  a  decision 
as  to  which  of  the  two  must  give  way  to  the  other  can  hardly  in  the  nature 
of  things,  or  by  any  rational  use  of  language,  be  regarded  as  merely  a  matter 
of  discipline.  Those,  indeed,  who  are  inclined  to  take  such  view,  may  well 
bear  in  mind  the  fate  of  Panzini,  who,  regarding  celibacy  as  a  point  of  dis¬ 
cipline,  was  condemned,  in  1860,  by  the  Roman  Inquisition  to  twelve  years’ 
incarceration-for  merely  writing  an  essay,  which  never  was  printed,  arguing 
in  favor  of  its  impolicy. 


INDEX 


ABBEY  lands,  disposition  of  in  Ger- 

many,  434,  437,  439 

in  England,  454,  482 

in  Scotland,  508 

confiscated  in  France,  589 

in  Italy,  609-10 

Abbo,  St.,  of  Fleury,  his  martyrdom,  153 

Abbot  of  Langdon,  case  of,  451 

of  Crossed-Friars,  case  of,  457 

of  Walden,  his  marriage,  463 

Abbots,  their  marriage,  in  Hungary,  401 

execution  of  English,  457 

Abelard,  his  description  of  monacbism,  264 

his  marriage,  269 

his  “Sic  et  Non,”  316 

his  answer  to  Heloise,  348 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  350 

Abingdon,  Abbey  of,  167 

Absalom  of  Scania,  252 

Absolution,  purchasable,  in  Manichse- 

ism,  44 


marketable  value  of,  in  Rome,  356,  428 
mutual,  of  guilty  priests,  428 

by  partner  in  guilt,  346,  575-7,  633 
Abstinence  from  women  in  pagan 
priesthood,  49 

Abstinentes,  heresy  of,  33 

Abuse  of  confessional  (see  Confessional). 
Abyssinian  church,  customs  of,  92 

Accomplice,  immunity  of,  291 

Acephali,  109,  115 

Adalbero  of  Metz  ordains  sons  of  priests,  154 
Adam  de  la  Halle  on  Alexander  IV.,  334 
Adam  de  Marisco,  his  labors,  292 

Adela  of  Flanders,  seeks  to  enforce 
celibacy,  260 

Adela  of  Flanders,  miraculous  cure  of,  404 
Adelaide  of  Savoy,  her  interposition 
asked,  203 

Adolph  of  Nassau,  Archb.  of  Mainz,  412 
Adorateur3  de  Jesus,  613 

Adrian  I.  asserts  the  morality  of  his 
clergy,  135 

Adrian  VI.,  his  views  on  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  422 

reproaches  Diet  of  Nurnberg,  424 
on  Luther’s  abrogation  of  celibacy,  432 
Adulphe,  frere,  case  of,  637 

Adulterous  wives  of  priests  to  be  put 

away,  39 

of  Huguenot  pastors,  498 

Adultery,  clerical,  habitual,  247 

immunity  for,  447 

toleration  of,  in  Mexico,  565 

less  objectionable  than  marriage,  627 
JElfric,  St.,  of  Canterbury,  his  canons,  172 
iEneas  Sylvius  (see  Pius  II.). 


Africa,  celibacy  urged  on,  66 

introduction  of  celibaoy  in,  73 

immorality  in,  81 

married  bishops  in,  89 

Donatist  monks  in,  107 

Agapet®,  scandals  of,  41,  50,  54,  78 

forbidden  by  Council  of  Elvira,  50 
by  Council  of  Ancyra,  54 

by  Council  of  Nic®a,  54 

by  Emp.  Ilonorius,  55 

Agde,  Council  of,  in  506,  80 

Age,  minimum,  for  vows  in  early 

church,  100,  105 

under  Council  of  Trent,  587 

in  France,  585 

in  Tuscany,  587 

under  Pius  IX.,  611 

for  ordination  under  Council  of 
Trent,  624 

for  resident  women,  626 

Agen,  Manichaeism  in  1100,  207 

Agnes,  Empress,  deprived  of  regency,  201 
Agrippa,  Cornelius,  on  the  clergy,  415 

on  licenses  to  sin,  428 

on  character  of  Roman  prelates,  429 

Agudi,  Father,  case  of,  607 

Ain-Traz,  Synod  of,  in  1835,  91 

Aix,  Council  of,  in  1850,  626 

Aix-la-Chapelle,  proportion  of  clergy  in, 631 
Council  of,  in  817,  138 

in  836,  137 

Alain  de  l’Isle  on  clerical  morals,  321 

on  Waldenses,  374 

Alberic,  Cardinal,  and  the  heretics,  370 

Alberic  of  Marsico,  his  crimes,  153 

Alberic  of  Ostia,  Legate  to  England,  281 

Albero  of  Liege  permits  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  247 

Albero  of  Mercke,  heresy  of,  196 

Albero  of  Verdun,  his  efforts  at  reform,  264 
Albert  II.  (Emp.)  fines  concubinary 
priests,  396 

Albert  of  Bavaria  asks  for  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  531,  539 

Albert  of  Brandenburg  embraoes  Lu¬ 
theranism,  366 

founds  kingdom  of  Prussia,  434 

Albert  of  Hamburg  on  chastity,  181 

his  measures  of  reform,  189 

Albert  of  Mainz  seeks  to  restrain 

priestly  marriage,  419 

his  proposed  marriage,  434 

Albigenses,  heresy  of,  207 

attacked  by  St.  Bernard,  331 

their  tenets,  367 

Alby,  extent  of  heresy  in,  370 

Council  of,  in  1850,  626 


644 


INDEX. 


Alcoba^a,  Abbot  of,  head  of  Order  of 
St.  Michael,  365 

Alcuin  on  disorders  of  Saxon  nunneries,  165 
Aldebert  of  Le  Mans,  licentiousness  of,  264 

Aldhelm,  St.,  on  virginity,  162 

Alemanni,  unchastity  of,  118 

Alexander  II.  seeks  archbishopric  of 

Milan,  209 

his  election  to  Papacy,  200 

his  estimate  of  Damiani,  186 

suppresses  the  Liber  Gomorrh.,  188 

he  enforces  the  reform,  202 

his  discouragement,  204 

he  protects  the  Jews,  205 

his  two  missions  to  Milan,  213 

he  authorizes  war  against  mar¬ 
riage,  215 

he  sends  legation  to  Milan,  217 

his  efforts  in  Spain,  303 

his  letter  to  William  the  Con¬ 
queror,  272 

his  death,  206 

enforcement  of  celibacy  attributed 
to  him,  225 

Alexander  III.  on  married  canons,  270 

his  efforts  in  England,  281 

his  endeavors  at  reform,  319,  321 
he  inclines  to  priestly  marriage,  325 
he  confirms  Order  of  St.  James,  364 
on  hereditary  transmission,  516 

Alexander  IV.,  his  reforms,  333 

on  corruption  of  laity  by  priest¬ 
hood,  350 

Alexander  VI.,  his  character,  345 

he  grants  marriage  to  Portuguese 
orders,  365 

his  patience  with  Savonarola,  386 
he  reforms  the  Benedictines,  403 
Alexander  VII.  defines  solicitation,  575,  576 
Alexandria,  disorderly  monachism  in,  106 
Alfonso  the  Wise  on  origin  of  celibacy,  28 
forbids  priestly  marriage,  308 

Alfonso  VI.  (Castile)  asks  for  a  legate,  304 
Alfonso  VIII.  of  Leon,  306 

Alfonso  I.  v Portugal)  founds  orders  of 
Avis  and  St.  Michael,  365 

Alfonso  I.  (Naples)  collects  tax  on  con¬ 
cubines,  399 

Alfred  on  chastity  of  nuns,  166 

Allocution  Acerbissimum,  609 

Alphonso  Liguori,  St.,  on  clerical  cor¬ 
ruption,  587 

Altmann  of  Passau,  his  mission  to  Con¬ 
stance,  229 

his  enforcement  of  celibacy,  230 
Alva,  Duke  of,  enforces  reception  of 
Council  of  Trent,  553 

Alvarez  Pelayo,  on  Spanish  clergy,  311 
Amalfi  (see  Melji). 

Amandus  of  Maestricht,  case  of,  126 

Amandus,  papal  legate  to  Spain,  304 
Amboise,  edict  of,  in  1562,  499 

Ambrose,  St.,  admits  disregard  of  celi¬ 
bacy,  67 

condemns  Jovinian,  69 

priestly  marriage  attributed  to  him, 250 
Ambrose  of  Camaldoli,  393 

America,  Spanish  church  in,  563-66 


(See,  also,  United  States  and  Canada .) 


Ammonius  Saccas,  39 

Ammonius,  St.,  his  fortitude,  188 

Anabaptists,  the,  438 

Anaclet,  antipope,  enforces  celibacy,  342 
Anastasius  (Emp.),  revolts  against,  107 

Anathema,  nature  of,  640 

for  disbelief  in  celibacy,  536 

Ancarano,  his  opinion  as  to  priests' 
concubines,  339 

Anchorite,  estimate  of  chastity  of,  348 
Ancyra,  Council  of,  in  314,  regulates 

priestly  marriage,  51 

forbids  agapetae,  54 

on  vows  of  celibacy,  97 

Andrea  of  Vallombrosa  on  Milanese 
clergy,  210 

Andreas  of  Lunden  on  concubines,  197 
Andrew  of  Tarentum,  case  of,  123 

Angelric  of  Vasnau,  case  of,  142 

Angers,  clergy  of,  their  demoralization,  394 
Anglican  bishops,  regulations  for  their 
marriage,  489 

Anglican  clergy,  popular  contempt  for,  476 
restrictions  on  their  marriage,  489 
flexibility  of  their  faith,  490 

evil  influences  on  their  marriage,  494 
their  position,  497 

Anglican  Church,  the,  444—497 

Queen  Elizabeth’s  estimate  of,  491 
Anglican  priests,  manual  of  confes¬ 
sional  for,  634 

Anglican  ritual,  marriage  service  in,  476 

Anglo-Irish  church,  disorders  of,  298 

Anglo-Saxon  church,  celibacy  enforced,  162 
disorders  of,  in  10th  century,  147,  167 
Angouleme,  case  occurring  in,  269 

Anjou,  Council  of,  in  453,  79 

in  1262,  1291,  1312,  332,  350 

Ann  of  Cleves,  her  marriage,  470 

Annates,  increase  of,  by  the  Popes,  412 

withdrawn  by  Henry  VIII.,  450 

Anomalies,  ethical,  269,  347,  627 

Anse,  Council  of,  in  990,  156 

Anselm,  St.,  on  sacraments  of  sinful 

priests,  195 

his  reforms,  273 

his  death  in  1109,  278 

Anselmo  di  Badagio  (see  Alexander  II.). 
Anselmo,  St.,  of  Lucca,  his  persecu¬ 
tion,  222 

Antealtaria,  Abbot  of,  308 

Anthony,  St.,  retires  to  the  desert,  97 

Anthony  of  Ephesus,  crimes  of,  85 

Anthony  of  Prague  enforces  Triden¬ 
tine  canons,  534 

heresy  encouraged  by  corruption,  556 
Antichrist,  anticipation  of,  394 

Antidicomarianitarians,  heresy  of,  69 

Antioch,  Council  of,  42 

Antisacerdotalism  of  Vigilantius,  71 

mediaeval,  370  sqq. 

Antoin,  married  canons  of,  270 

Antonelli,  Cardinal,  imprisons  Panzini,  602 
his  daughter,  631 

Antwerp,  Synod  of,  in  1610,  557,  562 

Apel,  John,  punished  for  marrying,  424 

Apocftlypsis  Goliae,  284 

Apollinaris  of  Rhodez,  118 

Apollo,  celibacy  of  priestess  of,  50 


INDEX. 


645 


Apology  for  Confession  of  Augsburg,  436 
Apostle,  Junia  the,  60 

Apostolical  canons  on  digami,  37 

permit  priestly  marriage,  39 

marriage  honored  in,  48 

Apostolical  constitutions  on  digami,  37 
permit  priestly  marriage,  39 

order  of  widows  in,  42 

honors  rendered  to  marriage,  48 

Apostolical  Letter,  Multiplices  inter,  602 
Apostoloci,  heresy  of,  97 

Apotactici,  heresy  of,  33,  44 

Appeals  discountenanced  at  Trent,  538 
Appeals  to  Rome,  immunity  caused  by,  139 
their  effect,  322 

forbidden  by  Alex.  IV.,  334 

Ap  Rice  and  the  Abbot  of  Walden,  463 
Aquinas,  St.  Thomas,  on  origin  of  celi¬ 
bacy,  28 

on  sacraments  of  sinful  priests,  195 
on  vows,  321 

on  absolution  by  guilty  confessors,  575 
Arab  monachism,  nature  of,  102 

Arabic  version  of  Nicene  canons,  53 

Aranda,  Council  of,  in  1473,  400 

Archembald  of  Sens,  his  evil  courses,  153 
Arechis  of  Beneventum,  law  of,  127 

Aretino,  abuses  in  church  of,  147 

Arfastus  of  Thetford,  272 

Arialdo,  St.,  seeks  archbishopric  of 

Milan,  209 

raises  question  of  priestly  marriage, 211 
is  excommunicated,  212 

procures  excom.  of  Archbp.  Guido,  216 
his  martyrdom,  217 

Arianism,  celibacy  under,  120 

Arith,  Win.,  on  clerical  disorders,  501 
Arles,  Council  of,  in  314,  51 

in  441,  69,  79,  105 

Armagh,  hereditary  archbishops  of,  296 
Armagh,  Council  of,  in  1854,  626 

Armenia,  hereditary  priesthood  in,  90 
Armenia,  Council  of,  in  1362,  90 

Arnald  of  Brescia,  heresy  of,  195 

Arnaldo  de  Peralta,  his  reforms,  309 

Arnolfo,  a  reformer,  fate  of,  341 

Arran,  Regent,  favors  the  Reformation,  507 
Artemis,  virgins  for  priestesses  of,  50 

Arthur  of  Britanny  a  canon  of  Tours,  307 
Articles,  Thirty-nine,  clerical  marriage 
in  the,  490 

Articles,  Forty-two,  clerical  marriage 
in  the,  475,  490 

Articles,  the  Six,  enacted  by  Parlia¬ 
ment,  467 

heretics  burnt  under  them,  458 

their  modification,  471 

repealed  in  1547,  472 

popular  call  for  their  restoration,  475 
revived  under  Mary,  478 

repealed  under  Elizabeth,  487 

Artois,  Council  of,  in  1025,  369 

Arundel  of  Canterbury  on  Lollardry,  381 
Asceticism,  unknown  to  early  Jews,  21 
in  Brahmanism  and  Buddhism,  23 
in  Essenism,  25 

not  encouraged  by  Christ,  25 

tendency  to,  in  Ebionism,  27 

tendencies  of  St.  Paul,  31 


Asceticism,  commencemnt  of,  in  the 

church,  31 

repressed  by  the  church,  32 

of  heretics,  33 

stimulated  by  the  heresies,  34 

and  by  influence  of  Buddhism,  35 
growth  of,  in  the  church,  36 

stimulated  by  neo-Platonism,  39 

and  by  Manichaeism,  45 

combated  by  the  church,  48 

overcomes  all  resistance,  49 

still  voluntary  in  4th  century,  58 

becomes  obligatory,  59 

reproved  by  Council  of  Gangra,  61 

voluntary  in  the  East,  84 

severity  of,  in  Armenia,  90 

of  monachism,  97 

instances  in  11th  century,  227 

spreads  among  the  laity,  241 

of  Irish  church,  160,  296 

neglect  of,  in  Spain,  307 

mediaeval,  347,  359 

of  military  orders,  362 

of  Albigenses,  368 

of  Fraticelli,  377 

of  Wickliffe,  381 

of  Hussites,  383 

exclusion  of  women  from  monas¬ 
teries,  404 

influence  of,  on  solicitation,  574 

in  modern  times,  612 

Aschaffenburg,  Council  of,  in  1292,  196 

Ashera,  worship  of,  21 

Assembly,  National,  secularizes  church 

property,  589 

legalizes  clerical  marriage,  590 

Assermentgs  priests,  590 

Assideans,  24 

Astorga,  Bishop  of,  on  Council  of  Trent,  539 
Athanasius  on  priestly  marriage,  58 

Athenagoras  on  morals  of  Christians,  33 
on  second  marriage,  36 

on  asceticism,  103 

Athravas,  hereditary  functions  of,  23 

Atto  of  Vercelli  on  female  ministration,  60 
on  dilapidation  of  property,  146 

on  married  priests,  152 

Attys,  worship  of,  50 

Augsburg,  the  Confession  of,  436 

Augsburg,  Council  of,  in  10th  century,  55 
in  952,  149 

in  1548,  514,  525 

in  1567,  561 

in  1610,  549 

Augsburg,  Diet  of,  in  1518,  416 

in  1530,  435 

in  1548,  441,  524 

in  1551  and  1555,  443 

Augsburg  Formula  of  Reformation, 

524,  526,  528 

Augustin  of  Canterbury,  161 

Augustin,  St.,  on  Jewish  high-priest¬ 
hood,  22 

on  marriage,  47,  314 

on  marriage  of  nuns,  104 

on  Manichseism,  46 

his  testimony  as  to  Jovinian,  70 

he  enforces  celibacy,  74 

on  temporary  nature  of  vows,  97 


646 


INDEX. 


Augustin,  St.,  on  wandering  monks,  102 
on  danger  of  female  residence,  138 
Augustin,  Rule  of,  adopted  by  military 


orders,  362,  363 

Augustinians  of  Gloucester,  suppres¬ 
sion  of,  457 

of  Niirnberg,  secularization  of,  425 

of  Saxony,  revolution  of,  420 

Aunts,  residence  of,  forbidden,  138,  628 
Aurelius,  St.,  enforces  celibacy,  73 

Auricular  confession,  commencement  of, 566 
Ausch,  Congres  fraternel  in  1793,  593 

Ausoh,  Council  of,  in  1851,  626 

Australia,  Council  of,  in  1844,  633 

Austrasia,  reforms  in,  130 

Austria,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  251 

efforts  for  clerical  marriage  in,  601 

civil  marriage  in,  605 

monastic  orders  in  1859,  615 

Autun,  Council  of,  in  690,  80 

Auvergne,  Council  of,  in  535,  80 

Auxerre,  Council  of,  in  578,  80 

persecution  of  celibacy  in,  593 

Availles,  case  occurring  at,  in  1817,  635 

Avellano,  monks  of,  186 

Avesbury,  nunnery  of,  its  morals,  282 

d’Avesnes,  case  of  the,  323 

Avignon,  residence  of  popes  in,  342 

Council  of,  in  1594,  560 

in  1725  and  1849,  626 

Avila,  his  casuistry,  578 

Avis,  order  of,  365 

Avranches,  Council  of,  in  1172,  319 

Ayenbite  of  Inwyt,  348 

Azzo,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  218 


BEUS  grants  marriage  in  orders,  92 
Babueus  excommunicates  Barsuma,  92 


Bachelors  ineligible  to  episcopate,  38 

Badegisilus  of  Le  Mans,  118 

Baden,  petitions  for  clerical  marriage 
in  1S28,  601 

Bahia,  Council  of,  in  1707,  626 

Baithusin,  hereditary  priesthood  of,  22 

Bale,  Bishop,  his  writings,  473,  480 

Bale,  Council  of,  395 

reconciles  the  Hussites,  382 

clerical  marriage  suggested  in,  406 

canons  of,  affirmed  in  Scotland, 1559,505 
revived  in  Germany,  528 

Balsamon  on  legislation  of  Greek  church,  87 
Baltimore,  Councils  of,  in  1829,  1843,  633 

in  1840,  627 

in  1S66,  627,  633 

Bamburg,  troubles  of,  in  1431,  395 

Synod  of,  in  1491,  196 

morals  of  clergy  in  1505,  431 

Bandello,  Bishop,  his  novels,  430 

Bangor,  morals  of  clergy  of,  463,  494 
Baptism  by  immoral  priests  invalid,  162 

repetition  of,  refused,  163 

Baptisma  igneum,  438 

Barbarians,  the,  and  the  Church,  117-25 
superior  morality  of,  82 

Bardsey,  Culdees  of,  301 

Bari,  military  bishops  of,  180 

Barnabite  college  at  Monza,  case  of,  621 

Baronius  on  Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  58 


Barrios,  Bish.  of  Santaf6,  regulations  of, 563 


Barsuma  of  Nisibi,  case  of,  92 

Barsumas,  Abbot,  at  Ephesus,  107 

Bartelot,  John,  case  of,  457 

Bartholomew  of  Bracara,  his  demand 
for  reforms,  534 

Basil,  St.,  his  strictness,  84 

Basilica  of  Leo  the  Philosopher,  87 

Basilides,  heresy  of,  34 

Bastardy  increased  by  celibaoy,  629,  631 
Bathing,  promiscuous,  41,  42 

Baumgartner,  Aug.,  his  speech  at  Trent, 518 
Bavaria,  marriage  of  nuns  forbidden, 

in  772,  135 


demand  for  clerical  marriage  in, 

442,  531,  536 

clerical  marriage  after  C.  of  Trent,  554 
immorality  of  clergy,  16th  cent.,  548 


abuse  of  confessional  in,  570 

proportion  of  clergy  in,  631 

Beards,  clergy  insist  on  wearing,  553 

Beatoun,  Cardinal,  his  immorality,  503 

his  proclamation  of  1540,  511 

Bede  on  Aaron’s  linen  breeches,  65 

on  the  rule  of  celibacy,  161 

Beggars’  Petition,  the,  453 

Beggars,  legislation  against,  under 
Henry  VIII.,  455 

Begghards,  the,  376 

Beguines,  condemnation  of,  377 

Belgium,  monastic  orders  in,  615 

clerical  attacks  on  public  schools,  623 

clerical  morality  in,  629 

Bellarmine  on  story  of  Paphnutius,  57 

his  defence  of  celibacy,  581 

Beltis,  21 

Benchor,  oratory  of,  295 

Benedict  VIII.  enforces  celibacy,  178 

Benedict  IX.,  character  of,  179 

he  sells  the  papacy,  184 

is  reinstated  as  pope,  187 

Benedict  XIV.  approves  of  Savonarola,  386 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  577 

Benedict  of  Camin  on  clerical  morals,  401 

Benedict  the  Levite  on  residence  of  fe¬ 
male  relations,  138 

Benedict,  St.,  of  Nursia,  111 

his  example  followed,  246 

salvation  procured  by  him,  335 

rule  of,  becomes  universal,  131 

supplemented  by  Louis-le- 
Debonnaire,  136 

adopted  by  military  orders,  362 

Benedictine  order,  saints  in,  113 

its  services  to  civilization,  357 

its  morals  in  15th  century,  403 

Benefices  held  by  tenure  of  chastity,  311 

bestowal  of,  on  servants,  515 

hereditary  (see  Hereditary  Trans¬ 
mission). 

Benefit  of  clergy  for  married  priests,  291 

extended  to  concubines,  339 

Benevento,  Council  of,  in  1693,  574,  626 

Benzo,  his  account  of  Hildebrand,  197 

his  use  of  the  term  Paterins,  212 

on  Nicolitism,  238 

Berenger  of  Tours  on  priestly  mar- 
riage,  256 

Bernald  of  Constance  on  Paphnutius,  56 


INDEX. 


647 


Bernard,  St.,  reforms  effected  by  him, 
miracle  wrought  by  him, 
on  barbarism  of  Ireland, 
his  hymn  on  St.  Malachi, 
on  dissolution  of  priestly  mar¬ 
riage, 

his  defence  of  marriage, 
on  influence  of  papal  court, 
on  the  Albigenses, 
on  the  Petrobrusians, 
on  Manic.haean  abhorrence  of  mar¬ 
riage, 

Bernard  of  Font-Cauld  on  Waldenses, 
Bernard  of  Tiron  preaches  reform, 
Bernhardi,  Bart.,  marries  in  1521, 
Bernhardus  Baptisatus,  his  sermon, 
Bertrand,  St.,  of  Comminges,  miracle 
by, 

Berytus,  Synod  of,  in  448, 

Besan§on,  Synod  of,  in  1707,  562, 

Beverege,  John,  burnt, 

Beza,  Theod.,  on  marriage  in  Anglican 
church, 

Beze,  charter  to  monastery  of, 
Bhagavad-gita,  the, 

Bhikshus  and  Bhikshunis,  Bhuddist, 
Bigamy  of  priests  in  10th  century, 

in  11th  century,  172, 

in  12th  century, 
caused  by  celibacy, 
penalties  of,  for  clerical  marriage, 
Bigorre,  legalized  concubinage  in, 
Bilio,  Card.,  author  of  the  Syllabus, 
Bisantio  of  Bari, 

Bishops,  marriage  of  (see  Marriage). 
Bishops  to  be  husbands  of  one  wife, 
number  of  digamous,  37, 

their  morality  in  Coptic  church, 
witnesses  required  for  their  chas¬ 
tity, 

they  are  nominated  by  the  Mero¬ 
vingians, 

are  held  responsible  for  diocesan 
property, 

their  power  increased  by  institu¬ 
tion  of  canons, 
wer-gild  for  their  godsons, 
their  military  character  in  10th 
century, 
in  11th  century, 
they  are  attacked  by  Damiani, 
their  lukewarmness  as  to  celibacy, 
penalties  for  tolerating  priestly 
marriage, 

their  wives  rank  as  countesses, 
their  children  eligible  to  ordina¬ 
tion, 

female  intercourse  forbidden  to 
them, 

they  sell  licenses  to  sin,  389,  432, 
concubinary,  punishment  for,  at 
Trent, 

opposing  clerical  marriage  exiled, 
their  restoration  of  celibacy  in 
France, 

Irish,  poverty  of, 

Bishops,  Anglican,  regulation  for  mar¬ 
riage  of, 

position  of  their  wives, 


Bishoprics,  hereditary,  in  Britanny,  259 
in  Ireland,  296 

created  from  English  monasteries,  459 
Blacater,  Bishop,  persecutes  Lollards,  501 
Bloodletting  of  monks,  138 

Bohemia,  priestly  marriage  in  11th 

century,  243 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  246 

marriage  in  post-Tridentine  church, 554 
Waldensian  refugees  in,  375 

Begghards  in,  377 

Hussitism  in,  383 

Orthodox  Brethren  in,  385 

Bois-le-duc,  Synod  of,  in  1571,  562 

in  1612,  558 

Boisset,  permission  to  marry  refused 


to  him,  597 


Bologna,  Cossa  as  Legate  in,  344 

Bologna,  Council  of  Trent  transferred 
to,  442,  521 

Bonaventura,  St.,  on  absolution,  346 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  350 

on  dilapidation  of  church  property,  407 
Boniface  IX.,  legalized  simony  under,  398 
he  relaxes  the  rule  of  Fulda,  404 
Boniface  of  Canterbury,  290 

Boniface  of  Lausanne,  his  fate,  341 

Boniface,  St.,  his  scruples  as  to  Frank¬ 
ish  clergy,  128 

he  reforms  the  Frankish  clergy,  131 
attempts  on  his  life,  133 

on  infanticide  caused  by  celibacy,  137 
on  Anglo-Saxon  church,  163 

he  founds  Abbey  of  Fulda,  404 

Bonizo  of  Piacenza,  martyrdom  of,  222 
Bunn,  Old  Catholic  Synod  of,  in  1878,  604 
Bonner,  Bishop,  deprives  married 

priests,  478 

his  visitation  of  London,  479 

scandals  concerning  him,  486 

Bonosus,  his  heresy,  68 

Books  of  canon  law  burned  by  Luther,  418 
Bora,  Catharine  von,  marries  Luther,  425 
Bordeaux,  Councils  of,  in  1583,  1624,  560 

in  1850,  626 

Borgia,  Roderic,  his  character,  345 

Boseteha,  wife  of  Cosmo  of  Prague,  245 
Bosnia,  heretics  of,  369 

Bossaert  d’Avesnes,  case  of,  323 

Bossu  d’Arras,  Le,  on  Alex.  IV.,  334 
Bossuet,  his  probable  marriage,  582 

Botoa,  monastery  of,  306 

Bougaud,  Abbe,  on  dangers  to  the 

church,  638 

Bourges,  Council  of,  in  1031,  179 

in  1528,  515 

in  1584,  560 

in  1800,  595 

in  1850,  626 

Bourne,  Sir  John,  complains  of  Chapter 

of  Worcester,  491 

his  quarrel  with  Sandys,  496 

Boussard,  Geoffroi,  on  origin  of  celibacy,  29 
on  dispensing  power,  407 

Boutaric  on  droit  de  marquette,  355 

Bouthors  on  droit  de  marquette,  355 

Boyer  on  droit  de  marquette,  354 

Bracton  on  position  of  concubines,  197 
Braga,  Councils  of,  in  563,  572,  and  675,  80 


265 

266 

296 

297 

316 

331 

346 

368 

370 

545 

374 

258 

419 

391 

269 

82 

576 

510 

489 

265 

92 

94 

167 

181 

247 

278 

598 

197 

604 

180 

38 

159 

93 

131 

118 

123 

135 

162 

153 

180 

198 

233 

242 

259 

298 

303 

559 

538 

594 

595 

297 

489 

495 


648 


INDEX. 


Brahmanism,  asceticism  of,  23  | 

Branda,  Cardinal,  his  reforms,  392 

Brazil,  suppression  of  monasteries  in,  609 
Brecislas  of  Bohemia,  243 

Bremen,  Council  of,  in  1266,  253 

Breslau,  Council  of,  in  1279,  252 

in  1416,  338 

in  1580,  555 

Brethren  of  the  Cross,  385 

Brethren,  Orthodox,  385 


Bribes  to  avert  suppression  of  monas¬ 


teries,  454 

Brice,  St.,  case  of,  77 

Bridfrith,  his  life  of  St.  Dunstan,  166 

Bristol,  see  of,  created,  460 

Britanny,  church  of,  120 

priestly  marriage  in,  259 

heresies  in,  371 

British  clergy,  their  corruption,  159 

church,  discipline  of,  160 

in  9th  century,  171 

Brixen,  schismatic  Synod  of,  in  1080,  238 

orthodox  Synod,  in  1603,  562 

Brothels  kept  by  prelates,  429 

frequented  by  priests,  586 

de  Brou-Lauriere,  case  of,  600 

Bruges,  Synod  of,  in  1693,  562 

Brunhilda,  appeal  of  Gregory  I.  to,  124 

Bruno  of  Toul  created  pope,  187 

Bruno,  St.,  reforms  effected  by,  265 

founds  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  404 

Brunswick,  chapter  of,  in  1476,  400 

Brut  y  Tywysogion  on  married  clergy,  171 
Bruys,  Pierre  de,  his  heresy,  370 

Bucer  insists  on  priestly  marriage,  d 4 1 

Buddha,  Sankhyism  of,  23 

his  legend,  35 

death  of  his  mother,  68 


Buddhism,  its  influence  on  Christianity,  34 


its  connection  with  Manichaeism,  44 

its  system  of  monachism,  94 

Bulgaria,  Manichaeism  transmitted 
through,  207 

Bulgarian  church,  rules  for,  141 

Bull,  Papal,  Exsurge  Domine,  418 

Ad  canonum,  516 

Cum  primum,  548 

Horrendum,  548 

Ad  Romanum,  549 

Quae  ordini,  549 

Postquam  verus,  550 

Quemaduiodum  sollicitus,  552 

Cum  sicut  nuper,  568 

Universi  Dominici  gregis,  569 

Etiain  pastoralis,  577 

Sacramentum  poenitentiae,  577 

Auctorem  fidei,  587 

suppressing  English  monasteries,  447-9 
excommunicating  Henry  VIII.,  455 

defining  Cardinal  Pole’s  powers,  478 

reconciling  England,  483 

Burckhardtof  Worms  on  celibacy,  178 

his  instructions  to  confessors,  566 

Bure,  Idelette  de,  Calvin’s  wife,  498 

Burghley  endeavors  to  restrain  Q. 

Elizabeth,  492 

Burgos,  Council  of,  in  1080,  304 


Burial,  Christian  denied  to  married 

priests,  192 


Burial,  Christian,  denied  to  concubines,  310 


Burmah,  number  of  monks  in,  95 

Burnet,  Bishop,  on  the  English  monas¬ 
teries,  451 

on  the  Beggars’  Petition,  453 

Burning  alive  threatened  for  married 
priests,  in  1524,  423 

Butler,  John,  on  marriage  of  clergy,  460 


pABASSUT  on  Apostolical  canons,  49 

^  Cadalus,  his  election  as  antipope,  200 

his  cause  embraced  by  Milan,  215 

Cadam,  Transaction  of,  439 

Cadiere,  Catherine,  case  of,  579 

Caesarea,  Synod  of,  about  360,  61 

Caesarius,  St.,  of  Arles,  Rule  of,  112 

on  marriage  of  nuns,  111 

Caesarius  of  Heisterbach  on  influence 
of  priesthood,  346 

Cain  Patraic,  the,  159 

two  classes  of  bishops  in,  295 

Caisho,  priest  of,  his  case,  485 

Calabria,  celibacy  enforced  in,  76,  320 
Calatrava,  knights  of,  marriage  per¬ 
mitted  to,  364 

Calini,  Archbp.,  his  reports  from  Trent,  534 

Calixtins,  the,  383 

Calixtus  I.,  his  laxity,  37 

Calixtus  II.,  on  Manichaeism,  208 

he  enforces  celibacy  in  France,  267 

his  consequent  unpopularity,  208 

he  declares  marriage  dissolved  by 
orders,  313 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  567 

Calixtus,  his  work  on  celibacy,  583 

Caine,  Council  of,  in  978,  170 

Calvi,  Donato,  on  religious  orders,  96 

Calvin,  his  confession  of  faith,  498 

his  marriage,  498 

Calvinism,  498-513 

its  discipline,  498 

clerical  marriage  a  matter  of 
course,  498,  510 

Calvinist  converts,  marriage  of,  499 

Camaldoli,  monks  of,  183 

their  demoralization,  393 

Cambrai,  Manichaeism  in  1025,  207 

Hildebrandine  doctrine  punished,  236 

Council  of,  in  1025,  208 

in  1550,  528 

in  1565  and  1567,  559 

in  1631,  560 

in  1661,  576 

Camin,  Synods  of,  in  1454  and  1492,  402 

Campeggi,  Card.,  persecutes  married 

priests,  423 

heresy  justified  by  clerical  immor¬ 
ality,  430 

assists  in  suppression  of  English 
monasteries,  449 

Canada,  duration  of  vows  in,  613 

modern  Councils  of,  626-7,  633 

Canonical  age  for  resident  women,  626 

Canons,  Apostolical  (see  Apostolical). 
Canons  regular,  institution  of,  134 

of  Fecamp,  expulsion  of,  155 

discussion  concerning  their  mar¬ 
riage,  263 


INDEX. 


649 


Canons  are  forced  to  cloistered  life,  265 
marriage  of,  in  12th  century,  270 
hereditary  in  England,  272 

replace  Culdees  in  Scotland,  300 
laxity  of  their  rule,  307 

of  Compostella,  reform  of,  305 

demoralization  of,  in  15th  cent.,  399 
their  unclerical  habits,  Germany, 

14th  century,  340 

of  Brunswick  in  1476,  their  morals,  401 


of  Lausanne,  their  demoralization,  429 
of  Munster  refuse  to  be  reformed,  548 
of  Milan,  their  contest  with  St. 
Charles  Borromeo,  550 

Canterbury,  Christ  Church,  in  11th  cent.  171 
number  of  married  clergy  in,  489 
“Capacities”  given  to  ejected  monks,  455 
Capito,  Wolf.  Fab.,  persecutes  married 

priests,  420 

is  married,  423 

Caprara,  Legate,  on  married  priests,  596 
Capua,  Council  of,  in  389,  68 

Caraffa,  Card.,  on  need  of  reformation,  522 
Cardinalate, childlessness  a  prerequisite, 550 


Cardinal’s  college,  founded  by  Wolsey,  447 
Carinthia,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  233 
Carloman  seeks  to  reform  the  church, 

128,  130 

enters  Monte  Casino,  134 

Carlostadt  advocates  priestly  marriage, 419 
favors  the  Anabaptists,  438 

Carlovingian  alliance  with  the  church,  128 
civilization,  its  disappearance,  143 
Carmelites,  corruption  of,  353,  587 

Carnarvonshire,  complaints  of  priests  in, 400 
Carpocrates,  heresy  of,  34 

Carracioli,  Bishop  of  Troyes,  married,  499 
Carterius,  Bishop,  case  of,  37 

Carthage,  immorality  in,  82 

Council  of,  in  348,  100 

in  390,  73 

in  397,  73 

in  398,  49,  73 

in  401,  74 

in  411,  „  107 

in  419,  74 

Carthusian  asceticism,  359 

Carthusians  of  London  resist  Henry 
VIII.,  450 

Cashel,  Archb.  of,  on  children  of  bis¬ 
hops,  297 

Cashel,  Council  of,  in  1171,  298 

in  1853,  633 

Cassander,  G.,  on  clerical  marriage,  542 
Cassianus,  heresy  of,  33 

Cassianus,  St.,  Rule  of,  101,  110 

Cassiodorus  relates  the  story  of  Paph- 
nutius,  57 

Caste,  priestly,  dangers  of  creating,  225 
Castel-Fuerte,  Marques  del,  565 

Castration  of  Galli,  50 

Castro,  Alfonso  de,  heresy  justified  by 
clerical  wickedness,  430 

Casuistry  applied  to  solicitation, 

571,  575,  576 

its  effect  on  morality,  578 

Catarini,  Card.,  and  theVatican  Council,  604 
Catarino,  Ambrogio,  418 

Cathari,  heresy  of,  207,  367 


Catharine  von  Bora,  425 

Catherine  de  Medicis  on  reception  of 

Council  of  Trent,  546 

her  efforts  for  clerical  marriage,  559 

Catholicism,  observances  borrowed 

from  Buddhism,  35 

from  Mazdeism,  44 

Catholics,  persecution  of,  in  Scotland,  512 
Caumont,  case  of  married  priest  of,  258 
Cavour  introduces  civil  marriage  in 

Sardinia,  605 

suppresses  monasteries  in  Sar¬ 
dinia,  609 

Cele-de,  or  Culdee,  299 

Celestin  III.  on  vows  and  marriage,  321 
on  hereditary  priesthood,  326 

Celestin  (pseudo)  on  abuse  of  confes¬ 
sional,  567 

Celibacy,  its  influence  on  history,  19 

its  post-apostolical  origin  ad¬ 
mitted,  27 

not  favored  in  Apost.  Constitutions,  48 
its  enforcement  by  Council  of  El¬ 
vira  in  305,  50 

not  required  by  Council  of  Nicsea,  53 
its  first  enforcement,  64 

opposition  to  it,  67 

attributed  to  Gregory  I.,  124 

and  to  Gregory  VII.,  224 

its  necessity  to  the  church,  193,  225 
deprecated  by  Alexander  III.,  325 
its  final  enforcement,  330 

its  results,  331-361 

Wickliffe’s  opinion  of  it,  379 

condemned  by  Lollards,  381 

maintained  by  Hussites,  384 

not  observed  by  Orthodox  Breth¬ 
ren,  385 

nor  by  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  385 
evils  attributed  to,  394 

is  deprecated  in  15th  century,  405 
is  denounced  by  Luther,  418 

is  the  main  obstacle  to  reunion,  544 
is  made  a  point  of  faith  in  1528,  515 

and  by  Council  of  Trent,  536,  640 
and  by  the  Inquisition,  603 

attacked  in  the  18th  century,  582 
persecuted  in  French  Revolution,  593 
reestablished  after  the  Terror,  595 
modern  policy  of  the  church,  602-4 
is  likely  to  be  maintained  in  the 
future,  607,  608 

modern  influence  of,  638 

Celibates,  disabilities  of,  removed,  99 

Celsus  of  Armagh,  296 

Celtic  churches,  original  purity  of,  295 
Cenobitic  life,  commencement  of,  97 

Ceres,  celibacy  of  priestesses  of,  50 

Cereza,  father,  of  Monza,  621 

Cesarini,  Cardinal,  on  revolt  against 
church,  395 

Ceylon,  number  of  monks  in,  95 

Chalcedon,  Council  of,  in  451,  107 

Chalons,  Council  of,  in  649,  80 

in  813,  567 

in  893,  142 

Chantries,  English,  absorption  of,  459 
Charibert,  his  laws  on  forcible  marriage,  120 
Charity  of  the  monastic  orders,  358 


42 


650 


INDEX. 


Charity  in  modern  church,  612,  616 

religious  organization  of, in  France,  615 
Charlemagne,  his  efforts  to  reform  the 
church,  134,  135 

Charles,  Archduke,  asks  for  clerical 
marriage,  544 

Charles  Borromeo,  St.,  his  reforms,  550-2 
Charles-le-Chauve  on  appellate  juris¬ 
diction  of  Rome,  139 

Charles  the  Lame  imposes  fines  on 
concubinage,  339 

Charles  Martel  oppresses  the  church,  129 
his  punishment,  130 

Charles  IV.  (Emp.)  urges  reform,  340 
Charles  V.  (Emp.),  his  policy  in  1530,  435 
he  temporizes  with  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  439,  440 

he  issues  the  Interim,  441 

he  demands  dispensations  for  mar¬ 
ried  priests,  442 

he  accepts  the  Reformation,  443 

his  demands  for  Council  of  Trent,  519 
he  objects  to  its  transfer  to  Bologna,  521 
on  the  reforms  of  Paul  III.,  522 

he  seeks  to  reform  the  German 
church,  524 

Charles  VII.  (France)  fines  concubin- 
ary  priests,  396 

Charles  IX.  (France)  asks  for  clerical 
marriage,  533,  641 

Charles  de  Valois  intervenes  in  Flan¬ 
ders,  323 

Charter-House,  monks  of.  their  fate,  450 
Charter  of  Oswalde’s  Law,  169 

Charters  of  1814  and  1830,  600 

Chartier,  Alain,  on  condition  of  church,  394 
Chartreuse,  strictness  of  rules  of,  404 
Chassidim,  24 

Chastity,  estimate  of,  by  Cassianus,  102 
feudal  tenure  by,  153,  311 

gift  of,  to  be  obtained  by  seeking, 

331,  530,  536 
gift  of,  assured  by  Council  of  Trent,  624 
sacrifice  of,  21 

vows  of,  their  introduction,  41 

their  perversion,  127 

required  for  holy  orders,  179 
in  military  orders,  362 

maintained  in  the  Six  Articles,  468 
papal  dispensation  for,  535,  642 
never  dispensed  for,  611 

prelates  at  Trent  sworn  to 
support,  533 

Ch&tillon,  Cardinal  de,  his  marriage,  499 
Chaucer  on  priest’s  children,  338 

on  corrupting  influence  of  priests,  351 
Chavard,  Abbe,  case  of,  601 

on  age  of  ordination,  624 

Chelsea,  Council  of,  in  787,  164 

Chepstow,  Abbess  of,  accuses  Dr.  Lon¬ 
don,  457 

Cheregato,  Legate,  on  priestly  immu¬ 
nity,  424 

Cbertsey,  monastery  of,  reformed,  169 
Chester,  see  of,  created,  460 

Childebert,  his  laws  on  forcible  mar¬ 
riage,  120 

Child-bearing,  importance  of,  among 

the  Jews,  21 


! 


Child-bearing,  St.  Paul’s  estimate  of,  31 

Children  cause  ineligibility  to  episco¬ 
pate,  87 

and  to  cardinalate,  550 

Children  of  ecclesiastics  (see  Heredi¬ 
tary  transmission). 

in  tenth  century,  145,  146,  148,  149 
ordained  by  Adalbero  of  Metz,  154 

disabilities  of,  in  11th  century,  179 

yet  openly  provided  for,  181 

ineligibility  of,  184 

refused  preferment  by  Henry  III.,  187 
admitted  by  Alexander  II.,  205 

declared  infamous  in  1266,  253 


openly  acknowledged  in  Normandy, 258 
have  claims  on  paternal  benefice,  265 
disallowed  in  England  in  1102,  274 
their  ordination  permitted  in  1107,  276 
refused  in  1144,  281 

universal  in  13th  century,  285 

forbidden  in  1237,  288 

universal  in  Spain, 

304,  305,  311,  400 
favored  by  dispensing  power,  321 
forbidden  by  Celestin  III.,  326 

rendered  heritable  by  Fred.  II.,  335 


fruitless  efforts  to  prevent  it,  327-8 
legislation  of  Clement  VII.,  616 

papal  dispensation  for,  517 

regulations  in  Scotland,  1559,  505 

of  Council  of  Trent,  538 

of  Pius  V.,  548 

of  Synod  of  Augsburg,  1610,  549 
of  Salzburg,  1616,  554 

of  Osnabruck  in  1625,  558 

of  apostate  priests  in  France,  500 
of  priests  by  slaves  emancipated,  563 
of  knights  of  Spanish  orders,  364 
of  Anglican  priests  legitimated 

in  1552,  476 

legitimated  under  Elizabeth,  488 

held  illegitimate,  494,  496 

China,  development  of  Buddhism  in,  95 

Christ,  his  toleration  of  Essenism,  25 

Christ  Church  College  founded  by 
Wolsey,  447 

Christians,  puritanism  of  early,  32 

Christians,  heretics  of  Bosnia,  369 

Christianity,  purifying  influence  of,  354 

Chrodegang  of  Metz,  Rule  of,  134 

Chrysostom,  St.  John,  on  virginity,  85 

Church,  morals  of  (see  Morals). 

the  Ante-Nicene,  31 

the  Latin,  its  influence,  16 

its  temporalities  endangered 
by  marriage,  63,  123 

extension  of  its  jurisdiction,  139 

growth  of  its  independence,  143 

it  is  a  protector  of  the  weak,  182 

necessity  of  celibacy  to  it,  193 

its  responsibility,  355 

enmity  against  it  in  15th  cent., 

394,  395 

its  growth  under  Pius  IX.,  608 

its  superiority  to  the  State,  618 

its  modern  claims,  639 

lands,  question  of,  in  Reforma¬ 
tion,  437,  439 

fate  of,  in  England,  454 


INDEX 


651 


Church  lands,  fate  of,  in  Scotland,  508 
in  France,  589 

in  Italy,  609 

Churches,  confessions  only  to  be  heard 
in,  574 

Churching  of  wives  of  priests  forbidden,  595 
Cincinnati,  Council  of,  in  1861,  627 

Cipriani,  Gius.,  on  clerical  morality,  632 
Circester,  Synod  of,  in  1289,  350 

Circumeelliones,  107,  109 

Cirita,  Juan,  St.,  case  of,  111 

Cistercian  order,  relaxation  of,  403 

Cistercian  Rule  adopted  by  knights  of 

Calatrava  and  Avis,  364,  365 

Cities,  monks  not  allowed  to  enter,  108 
Civil  marriage,  605-7 

practical  control  of  church  over,  607 
Civil  power  invoked  to  remove  concu¬ 
bines,  559,  560 

Civilization  promoted  by  monachism, 

113,  357 

Clarembald,  Abbot,  his  morals,  281 

Clares,  bare  ooted,  in  Paris,  612 

Claude  of  Evreux  essays  reform,  560 

Claude  of  Macon  essays  reform,  515 

Claustrals,  Franciscan,  402 

Clemanges  on  condition  of  church, 

343,  388,  389,  390,  394 
Clement  II.  appointed  by  Henry  III.,  184 
endeavors  to  suppress  simony,  185 
Clement  III.  on  self-mutilation,  40 

on  children  of  bishops,  297 

enforces  the  canons,  326 

Clement  IV.  enforces  celibacy  in  Austria, 251 
and  in  Denmark.  253 

Clement  VII.  maintains  the  claims  of 

the  church,  435 

his  bulls  to  Wolsey,  448 

on  hereditary  transmission,  516 

Clement  III.  (Autipope)  on  concubin¬ 
age,  238 

his  death  in  1100,  242 

Clement  of  Alexandria  on  heresies,  33 
on  the  Virgin,  68 

Clement,  Bishop,  case  of,  132 

Clement  of  Versailles  on  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  594 

Cleonique,  frere,  case  of,  620 

Clergy  worse  than  laity, 


168,  265,  2S2,  428-31,  530,  552 
it  corrupts  the  laity, 

340,  353,  388,  504,  518,  532,  560,  629 


Clergy,  Anglican,  position  of,  497 

French,  become  antagonistic  to 

Revolution,  589 

their  present  position,  637 

Spanish,  their  rudeness,  302 

resistance  of,  to  celibacy, 


202,  212,  222,  228,  231 


statistics  of,  in  modern  times, 

588,  593,  630 

Clermont,  Council  of,  in  1095,  263 

in  1130,  314 

Cleves,  Duke  of,  demands  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  531 

Climene,  frere,  case  of,  637 

Clotair  I.,  laws  on  forcible  marriage,  120 

Clotair  II.  on  monastic  excesses,  115 

Clovesho,  Council  of,  in  747,  164 


Cnut  the  Great,  his  laws,  173 

Cochin  China,  abuse  of  confessional  in,  578 
Cochlaeus,  John,  on  Confession  of  Augs¬ 
burg,  542 

Code  civile,  clerical  marriage  under,  597 

Coeur  de  Jesus,  society  of,  613 

Coklaw,  Thomas,  marriage  of,  509 

Colet,  John,  his  work,  445 

|  Colloquy  of  Poissy  in  1561,  559 

:  Cologne,  Council  of,  in  1146,  208 

in  1260,  33S 

in  1306,  377 

in  1307  and  1310,  340 

in  1423,  393 

in  1527,  514 

in  1536,  518 

in  1548,  526 

in  1549,  1550,  1551,  527 

in  1651,  562 

in  1662,  558,  562 

in  1860,  1863,  627,  633 

Manichseism  in  1146.  207 

condemnation  of  Lolbard  in,  377 

clerical  marriage  forbidden  in  1548,  530 
proportion  of  clergy  in,  631 

Archbishop  of,  asks  for  clerical 
marriage,  539 

Coloman,  King,  enforces  celibacy,  249 

j  Columba,  St.,  his  labors,  126 

his  mission  to  Scotland,  160 

Comedians  forbidden  to  perform  in 
nunneries,  527 

Commendone,  Legate,  promises  cleri¬ 
cal  marriage,  531 

i  Comminges,  miracle  occurring  in,  269 

;  Communion,  refusal  of,  in  Belgium,  623 

;  Communion  in  both  elements  in  early 

church,  44 

refused  to  laity,  45 

demanded  by  the  Hussites,  384 

by  Emperor  Ferdinand,  530 

by  Bavaria,  536 

by  Charles  IX.,  641 

granted  to  Germany,  541 

withdrawn,  543 

j  Comparative  merits  of  virginity  and 

marriage,  46,  47,  318,  347 

settled  by  Council  of  Trent,  536,  641 
Compiegne,  marriage  of  priests  in,  270 

Compostella,  Council  of,  in  1056,  303 

in  1113,  303,  306 

canons  of,  302 

their  reform,  305 

|  Compurgation,  immunity  gained  by,  140 

I  Concordat  of  1516  with  France,  428 

of  1801,  595 

clerical  marriage  under  it,  596-98 
monastic  orders  forbidden,  613 

Concubinage,  punishment  of,  by  Justi¬ 
nian,  87 

is  worse  than  marriage  in  Milan,  210 

is  more  venial  than  marriage  in 
orthodoxy,  349,  627 

is  recognized  as  a  necessity,  353,  389 
its  punishment  under  the  Six  Ar¬ 
ticles,  468 

in  Anglican  Church,  494 

its  recognition  asked  for,  527 

its  punishment  at  Trent,  538 


652 


INDEX. 


Concubinage  in  the  modern  church,  626-32 
(See,  also,  Licenses  to  Sin.) 
Concubinarians  ineligible  in  Saxon 

Church,  162 

proportion  of,  among  the  clergy,  519 
Concubines  of  clergy  in  Spain,  121,  517 
priests  compelled  to  keep  them, 310,  388 
priests  fined  for  not  keeping  them,  389 
they  acquire  legal  position,  339 

they  do  not  count  in  digamy,  349 
are  liable  to  death  under  the  Six 
Articles,  468 

are  not  punished  at  Trent,  539 

secular  aid  invoked  for  their  re¬ 
moval,  559,  560 

Concubines,  their  position  in  middle 
ages,  196 

Condom,  persecution  of  celibacy,  593 
Confessio  Goliae  on  celibacy,  290 

Confession  of  Augsburg,  436,  443 

Confession  of  Faith,  Calvinistic,  498 

Confession  not  good  against  accomplice, 291 
Confession,  auricular,  commencement 

of,  566 

dispensation  from,  428 

Confessional,  abuse  of,  in  middle  ages, 

311,  350,  352 
in  Germany,  16th  century,  432 

in  nunneries,  523 

acknowledged  at  Trent,  534 

in  post-Tridentine  Church,  566-80 
in  Italy,  18th  century,  586,  588 

in  modern  times,  632-7 

testimony  of  Ernest  Renan,  625 

Confessionals,  regulations  concerning, 

574,  632 

Confessors,  guilty,  absolution  by,  575-7 
protection  accorded  to  them,  570,  633 
Confiscation  of  estates  of  married 
priests,  87 

Congregations,  religious,  subjected  to 
the  State,  in  1760,  585 

Conjo,  convent  of  S.  Maria  of,  307 

Conrad,  King  of  Lombardy,  220 

Conrad,  Legate,  holds  Council  of  Mainz,  337 
Conrad  of  Mainz  on  the  Hussites,  384 
Conrad  of  Prague,  the  Hussite,  384 

Conrad  of  Wurtzburg  on  morals  of 
clergy,  424,  431 

Consenza,  Council  of,  in  1579,  553 

Conseyo  de  la  Suprema  on  solicitation, 

569,  571 

Consilium  de  emendanda  ecclesia, 

516,  522,  549 

put  into  the  Index,  523 

Constance,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  229 
assembly  of,  in  1094,  243 

Council  of,  in  1415,  deposes  John 

XXIII.,  343 

its  failure,  390 

Synod  of,  in  1567,  430,  562 

in  1609,  557,  562 

Bishop  of,  defends  his  clergy,  340 
Constance  of  Burgundy,  her  influence,  304 
Constantine  assembles  the  C.  of  Nicaea,  52 
encourages  monachism,  99 

Constantine  Copronymus,  persecution 
of  monks  by,  90 

Constantine  (Pope)  threatens  Witiza,  121 


Constantine  of  St.  Symphorian,  154 

Constantinople,  Council  of,  in  381,  84 

in  400,  85 

in  680,  88 

Constitutions,  Apostolical  (see  Apostolical). 
Constitution  of  1791,  clerical  marriage 
in,  591 

Contarini,  Cardinal,  on  need  of  re¬ 
formation,  522 

on  evils  of  celibacy,  561 

Continence  overbalanced  by  pride,  32 

Continence,  vows  of  (see  Chastity). 
Convention,  National,  supports  clerical 
marriage,  594 

Convents  (see  Monachism). 

Converts  from  Catholicism,  marriage 
of,  499,  500 

Convocation  of  1547  approves  of  cleri¬ 
cal  marriage,  472 

of  1554  enlorces  celibacy,  480 

of  1557,  its  legislation,  485 

Coptic  Church,  customs  of,  92 

Corella,  affair  of,  572 

Corruption  of  laity  by  clergy, 

265,  350,  518,  548 
Cosmo  of  Prague,  case  of,  245 

Cossa,  Balthazar,  his  crimes,  343 

Cotta,  Landolfo,  seeks  archbishopric  of 

Milan,  209 

is  excommunicated,  212 

his  life  threatened,  213 

his  death,  215 

Councils,  revision  of  their  proceedings 

at  Rome,  628 

of  France,  in  1797  and  1800,  595 

Countesses,  bishop’s  wives  rank  as,  259 

Cournand,  Abbe,  proposes  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  590 

his  marriage,  591 

Courtenay  of  Canterbury  on  Wickliffe,  379 

Courtesans  in  Rome,  necessity  for,  550 

Court  of  Augmentations,  the,  454 

Courts,  mixed,  for  married  priests,  257 

Cowl,  Luther’s  wearing  of  the,  421 

Cows  as  source  of  episcopal  revenue,  297 

Cox,  Bishop,  on  Q.  Elizabeth’s  Injunc¬ 
tions,  492 

Cozza,  Card.,  on  abuse  of  confessional,  575 

Cranach,  Lucas,  his  portraits  of  Catha¬ 
rine  von  Bora,  425 

Cranmer  on  immunity  for  adultery,  447 

intercedes  for  Thomas  Patmore,  462 

urges  priestly  marriage  on  Henry 
VIII.,  '  463 

opposes  the  Six  Articles,  467 

his  marriages,  469 

encourages  priestly  marriage,  472,  473 

prepares  the  Forty-two  Articles,  475 

his  children  claimed  as  slaves,  190 

Creed  of  Piers  Ploughman,  352 

on  Carmelites,  353 

on  sacerdotal  powers,  355 

on  Franciscans,  376 

Cremona,  reform  of  priesthood  in,  217 

Cromwell,  bribes  tendered  to,  454,  460 
he  favors  priestly  marriage,  463 

he  mitigates  the  Six  Articles,  470 

his  fall,  471 

Crossed-Friars,  case  of  Abbot  of,  457 


INDEX. 


653 


Culdees,  299 

their  disappearance,  300 

Cullagium  (see  Licenses). 

Culm,  Svnod  of,  in  1745,  562 

Cumad  espuc,  or  virgin  bishop,  295 

Cunegunda,  St.,  her  asceticism,  176 

Cunha,  Rod.  a,  on  solicitation,  571 

Cunibert  of  Turin,  laxity  of,  203 

Cuno  of  Ratisbon,  184 

Cuthbert  of  Canterbury  reforms  Saxon 
Church,  164 

Cuthbert  of  London  prohibits  the  Beg¬ 
gars’  Petition,  453 

Cuyck,  Bish.,  on  corruption  of  Church,  557 
Cynog,  Book  of,  priestly  marriage  in,  294 
Cyprian,  St.,  on  vows  of  continence,  41,  42 
on  martyrdom  and  virginity,  46 

Cyril,  St.,  his  use  of  monachism,  106 

Cyrillus  converts  Bohemia,  244 


ABRALIS  of  Spalatro,  degradation 
of,  188 

Daimbert  of  Sens,  his  negligence,  263 

Dalmatia,  priestly  marriage  in  10th 

century,  149 

in  11th  century,  188 

relaxation  of  canons  in,  204 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  250 

Dalmatia,  Synod  of,  in  1194,  250 

Damasus  I.  asserts  sacerdotal  celibacy,  64 

on  marriage  of  nuns,  103 

Damasus  II.,  his  pontificate,  187 

Damhouder,  Josse,  on  character  of 
clergy,  557 

Damiani,  St.  Peter,  his  early  career,  186 

his  character,  193 

on  troubles  of  abbots,  154 

he  urges  Clement  II.  to  reform,  185 

and  Leo  IX.,  188 

his  Liber  Gomorrhianus,  188 

is  forced  to  leave  his  retreat  in 
1057,  192 

on  sacraments  of  sinful  priests,  195 

he  stigmatizes  wives  of  priests,  196 

he  endeavors  to  reform  the  prelates,  198 

he  confutes  the  Tuscan  chaplains,  199 

on  election  of  Cadalus,  200 

on  heresy  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  201 

his  continued  efforts,  202 

his  motives  and  arguments,  204 

his  mission  to  Milan,  213 

Damnation  for  dissidence  on  celibacy,  640 

Dampierre,  case  of  the,  323 

Dancing  mania,  cause  assigned  to,  351 

Danes,  effect  of  their  incursions,  139 

Danes,  Pierre,  his  repartee  at  Trent,  413 

Darius,  Silvester,  papal  collector,  417 

Daughters  (see  Children). 

Davanzati,  Bishop,  favors  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  583 

Daviaux  of  Bordeaux  prohibits  cleri¬ 
cal  marriage,  597 

David  I.,  his  reforms,  300 

Dax,  Council  of,  in  1585,  560 

Daylight,  confessions  only  to  be  heard 
during,  574 

Deaconesses,  ordination  of,  forbidden,  60 

their  marriage  punished,  96 


Deacons  allowed  to  marry,  39 

their  marriage  forbidden,  86 

Deans  of  Friesland,  254 

Death  penalty  for  marrying  a  nun,  100 
for  marriage  under  Six  Articles,  468 
for  celibacy  in  1793,  593 

Debra,  Abbe,  case  of,  635,  637 

Decretals,  False,  on  clerical  chastity,  136 
Decretum  Gratiani,  compilation  of,  317 
denies  apostolic  origin  of  celibacy,  28 
De  la  Croix,  deputy,  on  unmarried 
priests,  592 

De  la  Salle,  Abbe,  617 

Demeter,  worship  of,  in  Athens,  50 

Democratic  element  in  the  Church,  226 
Denis,  St.,  mistaken  relics  of,  217 

Denmark,  position  of  concubines  in,  197 
enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  253 

Dens,  Peter,  on  Italian  morality,  631 

Denunciation,  duty  of,  by  seduced 
women,  576,  633 

Denunciations,  Edict  of,  569 

Desforges  on  clerical  marriage,  582 

Desiderius  of  Monte  Casino,  180 

Devonshire  rebels  demand  the  Six  Ar¬ 
ticles,  469 

Devotees  permitted  to  return  to  the 
world,  41,  97 

Diabolic  possession  of  priests’  wives,  235 
Diaconate,  women  admitted  to,  60 

Diaz  de  Luco.on  dissolution  of  marriage,  317 
on  concubinage,  517 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  56S 

Diego  Gelmirez,  his  reforms,  305 

Diet,  German,  complaints  of,  in  1510,  411 
Diet  of  Hungary,  in  1498,  401 

Diether  of  Mainz,  case  of,  412 

Digami,  ordination  of,  forbidden, 

37,  86,  89, 123 
their  prevalence  in  British  Church,  159 
in  10th  century,  148 

condemned  by  Council  of  Spalatro,  149 
ineligible  in  Anglo-Saxon  Church,  162 
recognition  of,  in  11th  century,  202 
not  allowed  in  Milan,  210 

condemned  in  Hungary,  249 

condemned  by  some  of  the  German 
reformers,  426 

Digamy,  concubines  do  not  count  in,  349 
rule  of,  ridiculed  by  Luther,  418 

Dilapidation  of  church  property, 

123,  145,  147 

Dimitri  of  Dalmatia  assumes  the  crown,  250 
Dingolfing,  Council  of,  in  772,  135 

Dionysius  of  Corinth  on  asceticism,  34 
Dionysius,  King,  founds  Order  of  Jesus 
Christ,  365 

Disabilities  of  married  priests,  294 

Dispensations,  papal,  evil  influence  of,  397 
sale  of,  321,  322,  345,  398,  516,  517,  522 
power  of,  debated,  407 

for  unchastity,  131 

for  marriage,  sale  of,  522 

for  married  priests,  442 

from  confession,  428 

from  vows  of  chastity,  535,  642 

refused  by  Pius  IX.,  611 

in  favor  of  priests’  children, 

505,  516,  549 


654 


INDEX. 


Divorces  of  married  priests  in  England, 

470, 

Dogma,  celibacy,  a  matter  of, 

Dollinger  and  the  Old  Catholic  move¬ 
ment, 

Dominicans,  influence  of, 

admitted  to  France  in  1840, 
Donati,  Girolamo,  attempts  to  murder 
St.  Charles, 

Donatist  heresy  condemned, 

revived  by  Theodore  of  Canterbury, 
by  Nicholas  II., 
by  Gregory  VII., 
by  Innocent  II., 
condemned  by  Lucius  III., 
and  by  St.  Anselm, 
revived  by  the  heretics, 

368,  374,  379, 

Doringk  on  sale  of  indulgences, 
Dorothea  of  Denmark,  marriage  of, 
Dortmund,  Council  of,  in  1005, 

Down,  St.  Malachi’s  episcopate  of, 
Dracontius,  case  of, 

Dress,  clerical,  regulated  at  Coustance, 
Drogo  of  Terouane  persecutes  Watten, 
Droit  de  marquette, 

Dualism  in  Manichausm, 

of  the  Albigenses,  208, 

Dublin,  Councils  of,  in  1186  and  1217, 
Du  Fail,  Noel,  on  clerical  corruption, 
Dumonteil,  case  of,  600, 

Dunbar,  Bishop,  his  immorality, 
Dunstan,  St.,  takes  the  vows, 
his  miraculous  preservation, 
Dupanloup,  Bishop,  on  the  Syllabus, 
Du  Pin,  Louis  Ellies,  on  clerical  mar¬ 
riage, 

Duprat,  Cardinal,  his  efforts  at  reform, 
Durand,  William,  advocates  clerical 
marriage, 

Durham,  Council  of,  in  1220, 


WADMER  on  results  of  celibacy, 

^  East  Anglia,  defence  of  monas¬ 
teries  in, 

Eastern  church,  divergence  of, 
its  rules  as  to  celibacy, 
its  monachism, 

Easter,  different  computations  of,  161, 

Ebionin-,  or  Poor  Men, 

accused  of  immorality, 

Ebrard,  his  history  of  Watten, 

Ecclesiastical  procedure,  immunity 
caused  by, 

Ecclesiastics,  children  of  (see  Children 
immorality  of  (see  Morals). 

Ecgberht  of  York,  his  Penitential, 

Eck,  Dr.,  his  conference  with  Melanch- 
thon, 

Edgar  the  Pacific,  penitence  imposed 
on, 

his  reformatory  zeal, 

Edict  of  Denunciation,  priestly  mar¬ 
riage  in, 
solicitation  in, 

Edinburgh,  Council  of,  in  1549, 
in  1559, 

Edith,  Queen  of  Edward  the  Confessor, 


Edmund  I.  on  immorality  of  priests,  166 
Education,  monastic  influence  on, 

358,  616-21 


secularization  of,  in  France,  623 

Edward  and  Guthrun  on  immorality 
of  clerks,  166 

Edward  the  Martyr  supports  Dunstan,  170 
Edward  the  Confessor,  his  virginity,  175 
Edward,  Bishop  of  Scaren,  279 

Edward  VI.,  his  accession,  472 

his  funeral  services,  477 

Egara,  Council  of,  in  614,  80 

Eggard  of  Sleswick,  his  fate,  402 

Eggs,  punishment  for  eating,  in  Lent,  511 
Egypt,  purity  required  of  priests,  50 

neglect  of  celibacy  in,  85 

Egyptian  monachism,  commencement  of,  97 
Ejection  of  married  priest3,  594 

Elect,  Manichoean,  46 

Election  of  popes  limited  to  Roman 
clergy,  200 

Eleuchadio,  Abbot  of  Fiano,  180 

Elfbere  of  Mercia  supports  the  married 
priests,  170 

Elfritha,  her  intrigues  against  Edward,  170 
Elizabeth,  Queen,  her  hesitation  as  to 

priestly  marriage,  487 

her  assent  to  it,  488 

her  continued  repugnance,  489,  493 
her  insolence  to  Mrs.  Parker,  491 

her  Injunctions  of  Ipswich,  492 

Elna,  Council  of,  in  1027,  303 

Elphege  of  Winchester  and  St.  Dun¬ 
stan,  166 

Elvira,  Council  of,  in  305,  on  digarni,  37 
celibacy  introduced  by,  50 

on  morals  of  nuns,  99 

Emancipation  of  nuns  in  1523,  425 

Einancipatore  Cattolico,  the,  606 

Ernbden,  Count  of,  promotes  marriage 
of  nuns,  435 

Embrun,  Council  of,  in  1727,  626 

Emanuel,  King,  grants  marriage  to 
military  orders,  365 

Emo  of  Wittewerum  on  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  254 

Empire,  Roman,  licentiousness  under,  32 
Eraser,  Jerome,  his  epithalamium  on 
Luther,  426 

Encratitians,  heresy  of,  33,  44 

Encyclical,  papal,  Mirari  vos,  601 

Qui  pluribus,  602 

Incredibili  affiictamur,  609 

Neminem  latet,  611 

Encyclicals  of  Leo  XIII.  on  civil  mar¬ 
riage,  695 

Enforcement  of  celibacy  in  4th  century, 

67-82 

by  Gregory  I.,  123 

in  8th  century,  131 

attributed  to  Gregory  VIII.,  224 

difficulties  attending  it,  229 

in  12th  century,  245 

in  Bohemia,  246 

in  Germany  247 

in  Hungary,  249 

in  Poland,  251 

in  Sweden,  252 

in  Denmark,  253 


478 

641 

604 

375 

614 

551 

107 

162 

194 

227 

246 

195 

28S 

383 

397 

434 

155 

296 

58 

391 

260 

354 

43 

367 

298 

561 

641 

503 

166 

171 

642 

581 

515 

405 

288 

278 

170 

83 

86 

106 

163 

27 

34 

260 

140 

)• 

163 

440 

167 

169 

536 

569 

504 

505 

175 


INDEX. 


Enforcement  of  celibacy  in  France,  255 

in  Normandy,  257 

in  Flanders,  261 

by  Calixtus  II.,  268 

in  England,  273 

in  Ireland,  296 

in  Scotland,  300 

in  Spain,  304 

by  Innocent  III.,  327 

finally  successful,  330 

by  Henry  VIII.,  468 

by  Queen  Mary,  480 

by  Council  of  Trent,  536 

after  the  Terror,  595 

Engelheim,  Council  of,  in  948,  149 

England,  disorders  caused  by  Anglo- 

Saxon  priests,  147 

Saxon  period,  159 

celibacy  at  first  enforced,  162 

introduction  of  marriage  in 
9th  century,  166 

disorders  in  10th  century,  167 

reformation  attempted,  168 

its  failure,  172 

church  under  Cnut  the  Great,  174 

under  Edward  the  Con¬ 
fessor,  176 

position  of  concubines  in,  197 

heresy  in  1166,  207 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  271 

marriage  still  prevalent  in  13th 
century,  285 

hereditary  benefices,  272,  281,  282,  285 

excitement  caused  by  introduction 
of  celibacy,  289 

priestly  marriage  becomes  obso¬ 
lete,  291 

delay  in  enforcing  the  canons, 

318,  320 

marriage  of  priests’  children,  338 

Hali  Meidenhad,  347 

Begghards in,  378 

Wickliffe  and  Lollardry,  379 

demoralization  in  15th  century, 

391,  399 

restrictions  on  papal  power  in 
1517,  417 

the  reformation  in,  444  sqq. 

Dr.  Geddes’s  modest  apology,  584 

case  of  Shaw  v.  Starr  and  Ken¬ 
nedy,  611 

Council  of  Westminster  in  1852,  626 

English  bishops  in  Sweden,  278 

priests  in  Ireland,  298 

Enham,  Council  of,  in  1009,  172 

Eon  de  l’Etoile,  371 

Epaone,  Council  of,  in  513  60 

in  517,  80 

Ephraem  Syrus  on  Manichseism,  44 

Epiphanius  on  Ebionites,  27,  34 

his  Manichaean  tendencies,  48 

on  agapetae,  54 

on  female  ministration,  60 

on  the  Antidieomarianitarians,  69 

on  non-observance  of  celibacy,  84 

on  temporary  nature  of  vows,  97 

Episcopissa,  152 

Epistolae  Obscurorum  Virorum, 

413,  414,  415 


655 


Erasmus  on  religious  immorality,  356 

his  relation  to  the  reformation,  414 

on  indulgences,  417 

on  priestly  marriage,  432 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  567 

Erchenbald  on  infanticide,  137 

Erfurt,  Synod  of,  in  1074,  231 

Eriberto  of  Milan,  his  episcopate,  208 

Erlembaldo,  St.,  popular  chief  of  Milan,  209 

assumes  leadership  of  Paterins,  215 

his  death,  219 

Ermeland,  Synod  of,  in  1497  402 

in  1577,  562 

Ernest  of  Magdeburg,  his  cynicism,  398 
Erskine,  Lord,  characterized  by  Knox,  508 

Escobar,  his  casuistry,  578 

d’Espeisses,  President,  on  Italian 
morals,  552 

d’Espense,  Claude,  on  virginity  of  the 

Virgin,  69 

on  clerical  morality,  5 59 

Essenes,  asceticism  of,  25 

Ethelred  the  Unready,  state  of  England 
under,  171 

Ethelwold  of  Winchester,  his  reform¬ 
ing  zeal,  168 

Eucharist,  modified  by  Manichaeism,  44 

Eucherius,  St.,  his  vision,  130 

Eugenius  II.  on  concubinage,  196 

Eugenius  III.  dissolves  marriage  of 

priests^  ,  315 

convicts  Eon  de  l’Etoile,  372 

Eugenius  IV.  permits  marriage  to 

Knights  of  Calatrava,  364 

orders  Council  of  B&le  dissolved,  395 

Eulalius  condemns  Eustathius,  61 

Euphronius  of  Autun,  79 

Euphronius  of  Tours,  119 

Euron,  Abbey  of,  its  reform,  264 

Eusebius  condemns  priestly  marriage,  51 

Eustathius,  heresy  of,  61 

Eutychianism  of  monastic  order,  107 

Evangelical  Doctor,  Wickliffe  the,  382 

Evenus  of  St.  Melanius,  259 

Evreux,  Synod  of,  in  1576,  560 

Excalceati,  heresy  of,  33 

Excommunication,  effectiveness  of,  134 

Exemptions  conferred  on  ecclesiastics,  99 

Exeter,  Bishop  of,  on  children  of  priests, 286 
case  of  subdeacons  of,  320 

Expilly  on  number  of  French  clergy,  593 

Expulsion  of  monks  in  early  times,  101 

Exuperius,  St.,  favors  Vigilantius,  71 

UABRE,  Bishop,  of  Montreal,  613 

Fah-Hian,  his  account  of  Budd¬ 
hist  monachism,  95 

Faith, celibacy  as  a  point  of,  515,536,603,640 
clerical  marriage  as  a  point  of,  490 

False  Decretals  on  clerical  chastity,  136 

Faricius  of  Abingdon,  case  of,  227 

Fasting  in  penance,  160 

Fauchet  of  Bayeux  on  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  594 

Faustinus  on  separation  of  wives,  74 

Faustus  the  Manichaean,  46,  76 

Flcamp  reformed  by  Richard  the 
Fearless,  165 


656 


INDEX. 


Feini,  civilization  of,  295 

Felix  of  Nantes,  case  of,  119 

Fellows,  University,  celibacy  of,  492 

Felony,  priestly  marriage  is,  in  Six 
Articles,  468 

Ferdinand  (Emp.)  asks  use  of  cup  for 

Bohemia,  384 

demands  a  general  Council  in  1 522,  424 
tolerates  Protestantism,  439 

on  German  monasteries,  452 

on  clerical  immorality,  519,  529 

his  demands  suppressed  at  Coun¬ 
cil  of  Trent,  535 

asks  for  clerical  marriage,  530-2,  539 
Ferdinand  of  Aragon  supports  Ximenes,  402 
Ferdinand  IV.  (Naples),  his  reforms,  583 
enacts  civil  marriage,  607 

Fermo,  Council  of,  in  1726,  626 

Ferrers,  Alex.,  case  of,  502 

Ferry  of  Orleans,  bis  murder,  334 

Ferry,  Jules,  on  political  influence  of 

monachal  education,  618 


enforces  laws  against  unauthorized 


orders,  621 

his  secularization  of  education,  623 

Feudal  system,  independence  of,  182 

tenure  by  chastity,  153 

Fifteenth  century,  demoralization  of,  388 

Fischer,  Fred.,  punished  for  marrying,  424 

Fish,  Simon,  hi3  Beggars’  Petition,  453 

Flamen  Dialis,  second  marriage  for¬ 
bidden  to,  36 

Flanders,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  259 

case  of  Bossaert  d’Avesnes,  323 

character  of  post  -  Tridentine 
church,  557 

troubles  arising  from  solicitation,  576 

Florence,  Synod  of,  in  1057,  191 

in  1573,  553 

congregation  of  bishops  in  1787,  587 

Florentines  reject  their  bishop  in  1060,  195 

Fluviano,  Antonio,  Grand  Master  of 
St.  John,  366 

Focaria,  introduction  of  the  term,  283 

Fontaneto,  Council  of,  in  1058,  on 
priestly  marriage,  212 

Forcheim,  Diet  of,  in  1077,  236 

Formal  vows  dissolve  marriage,  321 

Formulas,  insincerity  of  Latin,  642 

Forret,  Thomas,  burnt,  510 

Forster,  Andreas,  his  defence  of  celi¬ 
bacy,  583 

on  celibacy  as  a  point  of  faith,  641 

Fortescue,  Sir  John,  on  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  318 

Fox  of  Winchester  unable  to  restore 
discipline,  447 

France,  celibacy  first  introduced  in  384,  64 
difficulty  in  enforcing  it,  76 

popular  desire  for  it,  77 

constant  legislation  required,  79 

morals  of,  in  4th  century,  81 

monasticism  in  7th  century,  115 

state  of  church  under  the  Mero- 


i 


vingians,  118  j 

in  8th  century,  128 

in  9th  century,  136 

in  10th  century,  146,  152,  155  1 
Council  of  Bourges  in  1031,  179 


France,  council  of  Rheims  in  1049,  189 

heresies  in  11th  and  12th  centuries, 

207,  367-75 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  255 

morals  of  clergy  in  12th  century,  264 
persistence  of  priestly  marriage, 

270,  318,  319,  320 
efforts  of  Maurice  de  Sully,  322 

results  of  celibacy,  331 

demoralization  in  15th  cent.,  394,  399 
heresy  of  Jean  Laillier,  408 

Concordat  of  1516,  428 

the  Sorbonne  refuses  a  conference 
with  Melanchthon,  440 

condition  of  church  in  16th  cent.,  515 
clerical  marriage  asked  of  Council 
of  Trent,  533,  641 

reception  of  Council  of  Trent  re¬ 
fused,  546 

character  of  post-Tridentine 
church,  559 

abuse  of  confessional,  570,  576 

case  of  la  Cadiere,  579 

question  of  marriage  reopened  in 
18th  century,  581 

corruption  in  18th  century,  585 

the  church  during  the  Revolution, 

588-95 

National  Council  in  1797,  595 

clerical  marriage  under  the  Con¬ 
cordat,  596-8 

varying  policy  as  to  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  599-601 

monachism  in  modern  times,  613-6 
education  by  monachism,  617-20 
reaction  against  monachism,  621-3 
morality  of  clergy  in,  625 

modern  councils  held  in,  626,  633 
prosecution  of  clerical  offenders,  635-6 
position  of  clergy  in,  637 

Francis,  St.,  of  Assisi,  on  obedience,  103 
his  annual  visits  to  Purgatory,  335 
his  exaltation  of  poverty,  376 

Francis  de  Sales,  St.,  on  choice  of  con¬ 
fessor,  578 

Francis  I.  favors  League  of  Schmal- 

kalden,  438 

Melanchthon  submits  Articles  to 
him,  440 

Franciscans,  their  corruption, 

350,  352,  353,  376 
their  influence,  375 

reformed  by  Ximenes,  402 

their  resistance  to  Henry  VIII.,  451 
of  Bavaria  on  abuse  of  confes¬ 
sional,  570 

Fraticelli,  the,  376 

Frederic  of  Lorraine  created  pope,  192 
Frederic  I.  on  sons  of  clergy,  326 

his  visit  to  Fulda,  404 

Frederic  II.  on  Milanese  heresies,  211 

on  children  of  ecclesiastics,  335 

Frederic  of  Saxony  protects  married 

priests,  419 

acts  as  sponsor  to  child  of  priest,  422 
still  considers  himself  a  Catholic,  423 
Frfires  de  la  Sainte-Croix,  617-8 

Freres  des  Ecoles  ChrStiennes,  617,  619-20 
Frerots,  the,  376 


INDEX. 


657 


Fressanges,  Mdlle.,  ease  of,  600 

Freysingen,  Council  of,  in  1440,  396 

Frideswide,  St.,  treatment  of  her  re¬ 
mains,  484 

Friesland,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  254 
Fringe,  John,  case  of,  318 

Fritzlar,  Council  of,  in  1246,  337 

Froude,  Mr.,  on  Henry  VIII.  and  the 
Six  Articles,  468 

Fructuosus,  St.,  of  Braga,  his  rule,  115 

Fuero  Juzgo,  clerical  celibacy  in,  121 

Fuess,  Wolfgang,  his  marriage,  422 

Fulbert  of  Chartres  on  military  bishops,  152 

Fulbert  of  Paris  and  Heloise,  269 

Fulda,  Abbey  of,  its  strictness,  404 

Future  life,  unknown  to  early  Jews,  21 

doctrine  of,  introduced,  24 

GAEIDHIL,  conversion  of  the,  159 

Gall,  St.,  his  labors,  126 

Galli,  castration  of,  50 

Gallicia,  Council  of,  on  discipline,  308 

first  nunnery  in  1129,  307 

Gangra,  Council  of,  in  362,  61 

Gardiner,  Bishop,  celebrates  mass  for 

Edward  VI.,  477 

sits  in  judgment  on  married 
bishops,  479 

scandals  concerning  him,  486 

Gaudin,  Abbe,  defends  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  583 

his  marriage,  591 

Gaul  (see  France). 

Gauthier  of  Ponthoise,  256 

Gea  Eurysternus,  priestesses  of,  50 

Gebhardt  of  Constance,  election  of,  229 

Gebhardt  of  Eichstedt  created  pope, 

184,  191 

Gebhardt  of  Ratisbon,  184 

Gebhardt  of  Salzburg  ordered  to  en¬ 
force  celibacy,  227 

Gebizo  enforces  celibacy  in  Dalmatia,  250 

Geddes,  Dr.,  on  celibacy,  584 

Gelasius  I.  on  second  marriages,  36 

on  marriage  of  nuns,  110 

Gelasius  of  Cyzicus  on  Paphnutius,  57 

Genebaldus  of  Laon,  case  of,  119 

Genoa,  civil  marriage  valid  in,  606 

Geoffrey  of  Chartres  fails  in  his  re¬ 
forms,  265 

Geoffrey  of  Llanthony,  case  of,  227 

Geoffrey  of  Rouen  enforces  celibacy,  268 

Geoffrey  of  Tuscany,  his  chaplains,  199 

George  of  Saxony  persecutes  married 
priests,  419 

Gerard  of  Angouleme,  case  of,  269 

Gerard  of  Cambray  on  Manichaeans,  208, 369 
Gerard  of  Florence  created  pope,  192 

Gerard  of  Lorsch,  his  inquiries,  148 

Gerard  of  Munster  assists  Friesland 
deans,  254 

Gerard  of  Nimeguen  on  clerical 
morality,  429 

Gerard  of  Sabina,  his  reforms,  339 

Gerbert  of  Aurillac  on  celibacy,  157 

Germain,  his  charter  to  Beze,  265 

Germany,  virtue  of  Teutonic  tribes,  82 

reforms  attempted  by  Carloman,  128 


Germany,  condition  of  church  in  10th 

century,  148,  154 

Council  of  Mainz,  in  1049,  189 

heresies  in  11th  and  12th  cen¬ 
turies,  207 

enforcement  of  celibacy  by  Greg¬ 
ory  VII.,  ‘  230 

triumph  of  schism  in  11th  century,  241 
continuance  of  priestly  marriage,  243 
rebellion  of  Henry  V.,  244 


impossibility  of  enforcing 

the 

canons, 

247,  318 

hereditary  priesthood  in 

12th 

century, 

326 

children  of  ecclesiastics, 

13th 

century, 

336 

testamentary  provisions 

for,  337 

condition  of  monachism, 

15th 

century, 

340 

Marian,  or  Teutonic  Order, 

366 

Waldensian  heresy, 

375 

the  Hussites, 

382 

Orthodox  Brethren, 

382 

Brethren  of  the  Cross, 

382 

Cardinal  Branda’s  reforms, 

392 

demoralization  in  15th  century, 

393,  400 

the  Reformation, 

410 

demoralization  in  the  16th  century, 

429,  432 

success  of  the  Reformation, 

443 

morals  of  the  monasteries, 

452 

reforms  attempted  by  Charles  V., 

524-8 

corruption  of  the  clergy, 

529-32,  542-3 
demand  for  clerical  marriage,  530-44 


clerical  marriage  refused,  545 

post-Tridentine  immorality,  548-56 
abuse  of  confessional,  570,  576 

demand  for  clerical  marriage  in 

18th  century,  583 

in  19th  century,  601,  604 

civil  marriage,  605 

monachism  in  Austria,  615 

modern  councils  held  in,  626-7,  633 
census  of  ecclesiastics,  630-1 

|  Geroch  of  Reichersperg  on  sacraments 

of  sinful  priests,  195 

on  disregard  of  canons,  317 

Gerson  on  origin  of  celibacy,  29 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  350 

on  concubinage  as  a  necessity,  353 

on  clerical  immorality,  389 

Gervilius  of  Mainz,  case  of,  130 

Gervinus  of  St.  Riquier,  176 

Ghaerbald  of  Liege,  his  canons,  135 

Gieus  de  Robin  et  de  Marion,  351 

Gilbert,  papal  legate  in  Ireland,  296 

Gilbert  of  Chichester  on  abuse  of  con- 
j  fessional,  350 


Gilbert  de  la  Porr6e,  condemnation  of,  315 
Gildas,  description  of  British  clergy,  159 


Giles  Cantor,  his  heresy,  385 

Giovanni  Gualberto,  St.,  183 

Giraldus  Cambrensis  on  origin  of  celi¬ 
bacy,  28 

on  the  Irish  church,  297,  298 

his  struggle  for  St.  David’s,  283 


43 


658 


INDEX. 


Giraldus  Cambrensis  on  married  priests,  285 


on  dispensations,  322 

he  deprecates  celibacy,  325 

on  residence  of  relatives,  332 

Girard,  Father,  case  of,  579 

Girona,  Council  of,  in  517,  80 

in  1068,  303 

in  1078,  304 

in  1197,  373 

in  1257,  1274,  310 

Glastonbury,  Abbey  of,  167 

Gloucester,  Augustinians  of,  their  sup¬ 
pression,  457 

See  of,  created,  460 

Gnesen,  clerical  marriage  in,  251 

Synod  of,  in  1577,  555 

Gnostics,  heresy  of,  33,  43 

Gobel  of  Paris,  594,  599 

Godric,  St.,  case  of,  111 

Godsons  of  bishops,  wer-gild  for,  162 

Godstow,  the  last  of  English  abbeys,  459 

Golias  Episcopus,  279 

Gomorrhianus  Liber,  188 

Gonsalvo,  Reginaldo,  on  solicitation,  569 

Goodacre,  Anne,  case  of,  512 

Goslar,  Manichaeism  at,  in  1052,  207 

Gotefrido  of  Tuscany  installs  Victor  II.,  191 
Gotefrido,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  218 

Gotfrid  of  Wurtzburg,  his  will,  337 

Goths,  Spanish,  their  immorality,  120 

Grace,  the  Pilgrimage  of,  455 

Gran,  Synod  of,  in  1099,  249 

in  1382,  1450,  1480,  401 

in  1858,  627 

Grandchildren  cause  ineligibility  to 
episcopate,  87 

Grandier,  Urban,  case  of,  581 

Gratian  on  origin  of  celibacy,  28 

on  dissolution  of  priestly  marriage,  317 
on  nature  of  anathema,  640 

Gratian  of  Rouen  on  clerical  marriage,  594 

Great  Malvern,  prior  of,  his  offer,  454 

Greece,  influence  of,  on  the  Jews,  25 

Greek  church,  its  divergence  from 

Rome,  83 

its  rules  as  to  celibacy,  86 

its  present  customs,  91 

tolerated  by  Rome,  327,  328,  640 
abuse  of  confessional  in,  577 

of  Bohemia,  244 

Gregoire  of  Blois,  598 

Gregory  I.  on  marriage,  47 

his  monastic  reforms,  113 

his  enforcement  of  celibacy,  122 

forged  epistle  of,  137 

his  conversion  of  England,  161 

on  indissolubility  of  marriage,  314 

legend  related  by  him,  349 

Gregory  II.  forbids  marriage  of  nuns,  127 

his  advice  to  Boniface,  128 

on  sacraments  of  sinful  priests,  195 

Gregory  VI.  purchases  the  papacy,  184 

miracle  at  his  obsequies,  187 

Gregory  VII.  condemns  the  story  of 

Paphnutius,  56 

condemns  the  epistle  of  St.  Ulric,  150 

adopts  the  heresy  condemned  at 
Gangra,  61 

accompanies  Leo  IX.  to  Rome,  187 


Gregory  VII.,  his  increasing  influence,  191 
his  character  and  aims,  193 

his  activity  under  Nicholas  II.,  196 
he  refuses  ordination  to  illegiti¬ 
mates,  205 

his  mission  to  Milan,  213 

his  excommunication,  219 

he  urges  Erlembaldo  to  perse¬ 
vere,  220 

his  exertions  in  Lucca,  222 

his  election  as  pope,  223 

his  enforcement  of  celibacy,  227 

his  action  in  Dalmatia,  250 

in  France,  256 

in  Normandy,  258 

in  Britanny,  259 

overlooks  England  in  his  reforms,  271 
his  efforts  in  Spain,  304 

his  death,  239 

enforcement  of  celibacy  attributed 
to  him,  224 

legends  concerning  him,  226 

results  of  his  theocracy,  345 

his  doctrine  revived  by  the  heretics, 

368,  374,  379,  383 

Gregory  VIII.  prevents  abolition  of 
celibacy,  325 

Gregory  IX.  on  Neapolitan  clergy,  335 

Gregory  X.  on  corrupting  influence  of 

prelates,  351 

deposes  Henry  of  Li6ge,  336 

Gregory  XIII.  complains  of  married 
priests,  554 

Gregory  XV.  on  abuse  of  confessional,  569 
Gregory  XVI.  represses  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  601 

Gregory  of  Nazianzum  on  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  58 

Gregory  of  Tours  on  nominations  of 

bishops,  118 

on  enforcement  of  celibacy,  120 

Gregory  of  Vercelli,  case  of,  190 

Grey-Friars  of  Perth,  their  luxury,  509 

Grillandus,  case  reported  by,  431 

Grindal,  Archbishop,  revives  the  Ni- 

cene  canon,  494 

on  position  of  married  clergy,  496 

Grosseteste,  Robert,  his  reforms,  292 

on  papal  court,  342 

Guala,  Cardinal,  constitutions  of,  332 

Gualo  of  Paris,  his  uncertainty,  263 

Guarino  of  Modena,  oath  of  chastity 
required  by,  153 

Guastalla,  Council  of,  in  1106,  244 

Guibert  de  Nogent,  case  of,  262 

Guiberto  of  Ravenna  on  concubinage,  238 
his  death,  242 

Guido,  Cardinal,  enforces  celibacy  in 

Austria,  251 

and  in  Denmark,  253 

Guido  di  Valate  appointed  to  See  of 

Milan,  209 

penance  imposed  on  him,  214 

is  driven  from  Milan,  216 

resigns  the  archbishopric,  218 

Gulielmus  Appulus  on  Nicholas  II.,  197 

Gunzo  Grammaticus,  148 

Gwentian  code  on  sons  of  priests,  294 

Gyrovagi,  109 


INDEX. 


659 


TTAARLEM,  Synod  of,  in  1564,  554 

Habit,  monastic,  salvation  insured 
by,  335 

Hali  Meidenhad,  286,  347 

Halifax,  Council  of,  in  1868,  627,  633 

Hamburg,  reform  undertaken  at,  189 

Council  of,  in  1406  335 

Hamerer,  Dr.,  on  clerical  corruption,  557 
Hamilton,  Patrick,  the  Scottish  proto- 
martyr,  506 

Hamilton,  Catherine,  her  escape,  506 

Hamilton,  Archbp.,  his  character,  503,  505 
Hanno  of  Cologne,  his  canonization,  201 
Hardouin  of  Angers  on  morals  of  clergy, 394 
Heads  of  colleges,  position  of  their 
wives,  495 

Helena  of  Adiabene,  22 

Heliodorus  of  Trica,  rigor  of,  86 

Helisacar,  Abbot,  strict  rules  of,  404 

Heloise  reforms  Convent  of  St.  Mary,  264 
denies  her  marriage,  269 

Helsen  on  clerical  morality,  629 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  633 

Hel  vidius,  his  heresy,  68 

Henke,  his  edition  of  Calixtus,  583 

Henrician  heretics,  370 

Henry  II.  (Emp.)  on  sons  of  priests,  155 

his  asceticism,  176 

he  enforces  celibacy,  178 

Henry  III.  (Emp.),  his  desire  for  reform, 184 
urges  Clement  II.  to  reform,  185 
creates  Bruno  of  Toul  pope,  187 

makes  Gebhardtof  Eichstedtpope,  191 
persecutes  heretics,  207 

appoints  Guido  di  Yalate,  209 

his  death,  192 

Henry  IV.  (Emp.),  accession  of,  192 

offers  made  to  him  in  1061,  200 

his  humiliation  at  Canosa,  219 

he  expels  Altmann  of  Passau,  230 

he  protects  married  priests,  237 

but  condemns  priestly  marriage,  239 
his  triumph  over  the  church,  241 
his  final  overthrow,  244 

Henry  V.  (Emp.),  his  successful  rebel¬ 
lion,  244 

failure  of  negotiations  with  him,  267 
Henry  I.  (France),  attempt  to  enforce 
celibacy  under,  179 

Henry  III.  (France),  his  edicts  of  paci¬ 
fication,  500 

Henry  I.  (Eng.),  his  speculation  in 

priestly  marriage,  276,  280 

he  enforces  celibacy,  278 

Henry  Y.  (Eng.),  his  persecution  of 

Lollards,  381 

he  attempts  a  reform,  394 

Henry  VIII.  favors  League  of  Schmal- 

kalden,  438 

joins  in  suppression  of  monasteries,  448 
assumes  supremacy  of  the  church,  450 
completes  suppression  of  monas¬ 
teries,  454 

is  excommunicated  by  Paul  III.,  455 
his  plans  for  use  of  monastic  prop¬ 
erty,  459 

he  maintains  celibacy,  461,  466 

negotiates  with  German  reformers,  466 
persecutes  married  priests,  467 


Henry  VIII.  is  responsible  for  the  Six 

Articles,  468 

objects  to  council  held  at  Mantua,  520 
his  death,  472 

Henry  of  Lausanne,  the  heretic,  370 

Henry  III.  of  Li6ge,  336 

Henry  of  Ravenna  adheres  to  Cadalus,  201 
Henry  of  Salzburg  on  priestly  im¬ 
morality,  247 

Henry  of  Speyer,  his  remonstrances,  233 
Hepburn,  Bishop,  his  immorality,  502 
Hera,  celibacy  of  priestess  of,  50 

Heracles,  Thespian,  celibacy  of  priests 
of,  50 

H6raudin  of  Chateauroux  on  clerical 
marriage,  594 

Hercules,  Gaditanian,  chastity  of 
priests  of,  50 

Hereditary  tendency  in  Greek  church,  91 
in  Latin  church  of  10th  century,  105 
its  dangers,  225 

Hereditary  priesthood  allowed  by 

Alex.  II.,  205 

Hereditary  transmission,  in  Poland, 

13th  century,  252 

in  Friesland,  254 

in  Normandy,  12th  century,  258 

in  Britanny,  12th  century,  259 

in  France,  12th  century,  265 

forbidden  by  C.  of  Rheims  in  1119,  267 
in  England,  in  11th  century,  272 
in  12th  century,  281,  282 

in  13th  century,  285 

in  Ireland,  296,  298 

among  Culdees,  299 

in  Spain,  in  11th  century,  304 

its  persistence  in  12th  century, 

321,  322,  326 

condemned  by  IVth  Lateran 
Council,  327 

persists  in  Livonia,  336 

in  Pomerania,  in  15th  century,  402 
in  16th  century,  505,  516 

in  post-Tridentine  church,  549 

Heresies,  the,  367 

encouraged  by  clerical  immorality,  334 
Heresy  of  sacerdotal  marriage,  201 

of  concubinarians  condemned  in 
1666,  558 

abuse  of  confessional  is,  568 

opposition  to  celibacy  is,  515,  603,  640 
Lutheran,  justified  by  clerical 
corruption,  430,  514,  516,  518,  527, 
529,  548,  556  sqq. 
Heretics,  persecution  of,  in  4th  century,  70 
on  corruption  of  priesthood,  352 

to  be  condemned,  not  contented,  536 
Herluca,  her  visions,  236 

Hermann,  Bishop  of  Prague,  243 

Hermann  von  Wied  of  Cologne,  518 

Hermann,  King,  condemns  priestly 
marriage,  239 

Ileydeck,  Baron  of,  his  marriage,  434 
High  Commission,  Court  of,  490 

Hilarion  introduces  monachism  in 
Palestine,  97 

Hildebert  of  Le  Mans,  his  efforts  at 
reform,  264 

Hildebrand  (see  Gregory  VII.). 


660 


INDEX. 


Hildebrandine  doctrine  as  to  sinful 

priests,  224 

its  treatment  at  Cambray,  236 

is  enforced  in  12th  century,  246 

becomes  obsolete  in  12th  century, 

248,  275 

is  adopted  by  the  heretics, 

368,  374,  379,  383 


is  condemned  in  15th  century,  382 
but  is  enforced  by  laity,  392 
Hildesbeim,  Synod  of,  in  1652,  562 

Hilles,  Richard,  on  the  Six  Articles,  471 
Himerius  of  Tarragona  on  celibacy,  65 
Hincmar  of  Rheims  on  appellate  juris¬ 
diction  of  Rome,  139 

endeavors  to  enforce  the  canons,  141 
Hiouen-Thsang  on  Buddhist  monach- 
ism,  95 

Hippolytus  of  Portus  on  digami,  37 

Hof,  immorality  of  priests  of,  428 

Holland,  reception  of  C.  of  Trent  in,  553 
Homicide,  unchastity  punished  as,  169 
Honorius  (Emp.)  on  residence  of  women,  55 
he  persecutes  Jovinian,  70 

his  edict  of  420,  77,  79 

Honorius  I.  reproves  Scottish  clergy,  161 
Honorius  II.  enforces  celibacy  in  Eng¬ 
land,  279 

morality  of  Rome  under,  341 

Honorius  III.  endeavors  to  reform  the 

Scottish  church,  301 

confirms  Order  of  St.  James,  364 
Honorius  II.  (antipope),  his  election,  200 
Honorius  of  Autun  on  sacraments  of 
sinful  priests,  195 

Hooper,  Bishop,  on  effect  of  the  Six 

Articles,  471 

his  visitation  of  Gloucester,  476 

Horn,  Bishop,  on  position  of  married 
clergy,  496 

Horne  on  married  clerks,  291 

Hosius,  Bishop,  on  celibacy,  529 

Hospitallers,  the,  362,  366 

suppressed  in  England,  458 

Hostility  to  the  church  in  15th  century, 

394,  395 

Hoya,  Bishop  of  Munster,  548 

Hubert,  Abbot,  marriage  of,  142 

Huesca,  Council  of,  in  598,  80 

Hugh  of  Grenoble,  his  asceticism,  227 

Hugh,  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  on  clerical 
morals,  282 

Hugh  of  Lyons  (Die)  endeavors  to 

enforce  celibacy,  256 

is  reproved  by  Gregory  VII.,  258 

his  efforts  in  Britanny,  259 

Hugh,  Archbishop  of  Rouen,  charac¬ 
ter  of,  155 

Hugh  of  Rouen  on  priestly  marriage,  318 
he  controverts  heresy,  371 

Hugo  of  Constance,  Zwingli’s  demand 
on,  421 

Hugo  of  Silva  Candida  at  Council  of 
Girona,  303 

Hugo,  Cardinal,  his  speech  at  Lyons,  342 
Huguenots,  priestly  marriage  among,  498 
toleration  of  their  marriages,  499 

Humbert  of  Silva  Candida  on  Greek 

errors,  191 


Humbert  of  Silva  Candida  on  simony,  201 
Humphrey,  Lawrence,  on  Richard 

Smith,  474 

on  position  of  married  clergy,  496 

Hungary,  introduction  of  celibacy  in,  248 
clerical  immorality  in  15th  cent.,  401 
discussion  of  celibacy  in  18th  cent.,  584 


effort  for  clerical  marriage  in  1866,  603 
National  Synod  of,  in  1822,  626 

Huss,  John,  on  sacraments  of  sinful 

priests,  196 

his  heresy,  382 

causes  of  its  success,  395 

Hutten,  Ulric  von,  415 

Hyde,  Council  of,  in  975,  170 

Hydroparastitae,  44 

Hypatia,  murder  of,  106 

IBAS  of  Edessa,  case  of,  82 

Iceland,  rights  of  illegitimates  in,  197 
Idelette  de  Bure,  498 

Ignatius,  St.,  on  abstinence  from  mar¬ 
riage,  32 

Illegitimates  ineligible  to  priesthood  in 

Coptic  church,  93 

in  Latin  church,  205 

Illegitimacy  of  children  of  ecclesiastics,  86 
of  Anglican  clergy,  494,  496 

Immorality  arising  from  vows  of  celibacy, 41 
less  reprehensible  than  marriage, 

145,  201,  627 

favors  shown  to,  320 

Immorality  of  church  (see  Morals). 
Immunity  caused  by  appellate  power 

of  Rome,  139 

by  forms  of  ecclesiastical  procedure, 140 
for  adultery  by  priests,  447 

Impostures  of  relics  and  miracles,  458 
Ina,  King,  Dooms  of,  162 

Incest  caused  by  celibacy, 

138,  278,  331,  555,  628 
common  in  Ireland,  297,  298 

price  of  absolution  for,  428 

diminished  by  marriage,  182 

clerical  marriage  held  to  be,  628 

Indelibility  of  priesthood,  314 

India,  influence  of,  on  the  Jews,  23 

Indians,  relations  of  priests  with,  563 
their  hatred  of  Christianity,  564 

Indulgences  in  Manichaeism,  44 

marketable  value  of,  356 

sale  of,  397 

opposition  to,  417 

Infallibility  decreed  by  Vatican  Council, 608 
Infanticide  resulting  from  vows  of  con¬ 
tinence,  42,  100,  137 

tradition  as  to,  124 

Infessura,  his  character  of  Sixtus  IV.,  344 
Influence  of  celibacy  on  civilization, 

225,  357 


political,  of  modern  monachism,61 7-18 


Injunctions  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  489 

Innocent  of  Rhodez,  118 

Innocent  I.  on  priestly  marriage  of 

widows,  39 

makes  no  reference  to  Nicene  canon,  55 
condemns  the  Bonosiacs,  68 

condemns  Vigilantius,  72 


INDEX. 


661 


Innocent  I.  enforces  celibacy  in  Cala¬ 
bria,  76 

on  marriage  of  nuns,  104 

Innocent  II.  dissolves  marriage  of 

priests,  315 

his  enforcement  of  celibacy,  246 

Innocent  III.  enforces  celibacy 

251,  252,  *286,  327,  332 
reforms  convent  of  S.  Agatha,  265 
on  hereditary  benefices,  266,  286,  298 
condemns  Bossaert  d’Avesnes,  323 
decisions  rendered  by  him,  324 

on  digamy,  349 

confirms  Order  of  St.  James,  364 

converts  heretics  of  Bosnia,  369 

his  hesitation  as  to  the  mendicant 
orders,  375 

Innocent  IV.  enforces  celibacy  in 

Sweden,  253 

his  judgment  for  d’Avesnes,  323 

permits  hereditary  priesthood,  336 
promotes  Henry  of  Liege,  336 

his  enmity  to  Grosseteste,  342 

Innocent  VIII.,  his  character,  345 

orders  visitation  of  English  mon¬ 
asteries,  399 

Inquisition,  the,  denounces  priestly 

marriage,  556 

condemns  heresy  of  concubinarians,558 
abuse  of  confessional  confided  to,  568 
its  decrees  on  solicitation,  575 

its  modern  procedure  in  such  cases,  633 
its  tenderness  to  clerical  delin¬ 
quents,  570 

case  of  Father  Mena,  579 

its  merciful  treatment  of  nuns,  588 
its  condemnation  of  Panzini,  602 
it  defines  celibacy  a  matter  of 
faith,  603,  642 

its  justification  by  the  church,  618 
Insabbatati,  373 

Imermente  clergy,  590 

Interdict  laid  on  Milan,  in  1074,  219 

Interim,  recognition  of  marriage  in  the,  441 
Investitures,  question  of,  218 

Ipswich,  injunctions  of,  by  Q.  Elizabeth, 491 
Ireland,  character  of  its  early  church, 

76,  159 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  295 

monasticism  of  its  church,  297 

corruption  introduced  by  the  Eng¬ 
lish,  298 

priestly  marriage  in  16th  century,  299 
suppression  of  monasteries  in,  461 
morality  of  clergy  in,  625 

modern  Councils  of,  626,  633 

Isabella  of  Castile  supports  Ximenes,  403 
Isidor  of  Pelusium  on  neglect  of  celi¬ 
bacy,  86 

Isidor,  St.,  of  Seville  on  monastic  im¬ 
postors,  115 

Isidorian  forgeries,  relaxation  of  canon 
in,  136 

Isis,  vow  of  continence  made  by,  50 

Italy,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in  384,  69 

resistance  to  celibacy,  76 

morals  in  4th  century,  81 

St.  Benedict  of  Nursia,  111 

monachism  reformed  by  Gregory  I. ,113 


1 


Italy,  state  of  church  in  6th  century,  122 

in  8th  century,  127 

Charlemagne  and  theRoman  clergy, 135 
state  of  church  in  10th  century,  144 

Ratherius  of  Verona,  146,  150 

Atto  of  Vercelli,  147,  152 

Guarino  of  Modena  and  Alberic  of 
Marsico,  153 

Silvester  II.,  157 

state  of  church  in  11th  century,  180 

San  Giovanni  Gualberto,  183 

Henry  III.  and  the  papacy,  184 

St.  Peter  Damiani,  185 

vain  attempts  at  reform,  190 

Damiani  and  Hildebrand,  192 

Council  of  Melfi,  in  1059,  197 

schism  of  the  Lombard  clergy,  200 

the  antipope  Cadalus,  201 

failure  of  the  reform,  204 

the  reform  in  Milan,  207-221 

troubles  in  various  cities,  222 

Synod  of  Melfi,  242 

Calabria,  priestly  marriage  in  12th 
century,  320 

Greek  church  in  South,  328 

children  of  ecclesiastics,  335 

privileges  accorded  to  concubines,  339 

morality  of  papal  court,  341 

Savonarola,  386,  398 

demoralization  in  15th  cent.,  393,  399 
in  16th  century,  430,  549-52 
clerical  marriage  proposed  in  18th 
century,  583 

corruption  in  18th  century,  586-8 
case  of  Panzini,  602 

civil  marriage,  605 

followed  by  clerical  marriage,  606 

suppression  of  monastic  orders,  609 

Barnabite  college  at  Monza,  scan¬ 
dal  of,  621 

modern  councils  held  in,  626-7 

number  of  clergy  in,  630 

morality  of  clergy,  631 

Ivo  of  Chartres  on  the  canons,  263 

he  reproves  immorality,  264 

Izeshne  sacrifice,  44 

TACOBINES,  number  of,  92 

^  Jainas,  the,  35 

Jalikiah,  its  church  independent  of 
Rome,  302 

James  of  Jerusalem,  a  Nazirite,  25 

the  brother  of  Jesus,  68 

James  IV.  (Scotland)  protects  Lollards,  501 

James  V.  (Scotland),  his  parliament  of 
1542,  503 

James  VI.  (Scotland),  his  baptism,  505 

Jameson,  Margaret,  her  marriage,  509 

Jane  of  Flanders,  323 

Janizaries,  celibacy  required  of  them,  19 

Jarnsida,  rights  of  illegitimates  in,  197 

Jean  de  Rely  on  morals  of  church,  399 

Jephthah,  daughter  of,  21 

Jerome,  St.,  on  the  origin  of  celibacy,  28 

on  Buddha,  34 

on  Manichseism,  46 

on  marriage,  47 

on  agapetae,  54 


662 


INDEX. 


Jerome,  St.,  on  heresy  of  Bonosus,  68 

of  Jovinian,  70 

of  Vigilantius,  72 

on  clerical  morality,  78 

on  observance  of  celibacy,  85 

on  early  monacbism,  97 

on  immorality  of  nuns,  100 

on  difficulty  of  virginity,  624 

Jerome  of  Prague  on  lluss,  382 

Jerusalem,  effect  of  its  capture,  326 

Jesuits,  they  protect  their  erring  mem¬ 
bers,  579 

their  influence  on  morality,  578 

their  expulsion  from  New  Grenada,  609 
they  endeavor  to  enter  France,  614 

their  recent  growth,  615 

their  suppression  in  France  in  1880,  621 
Jesus  Christ,  Order  of,  365 

Jews,  their  relation  to  asceticism,  21-6 
their  polygamy,  38 

Jodocus  of  Lubec  as  deputy  of  papal 
legates,  442 

John  IV.  on  Anglo-Saxon  monachism,  163 
John  XII.,  his  vices,  144 

John  XIII.  condemns  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  150 

ejects  canons  of  Winchester,  168 

John  XXII.  and  the  Fraticelli,  377 

his  taxes  of  the  penitentiary,  428 

John  XXIII.,  his  crimes  and  deposition, 343 
convokes  Council  of  Constance,  390 

his  sale  of  dispensations,  398 

John, King  (Eng.), speculates  on  priests’ 
wives,  283 

John  of  Alexandria,  his  strictness,  123 

John  the  Baptist,  Essenism  of,  25 

John  of  Crema,  his  misadventure,  279 

his  Scottish  reforms,  300 

John  the  Evangelist  condemns  the 
Nicolites,  34 

John  of  Frankfort  independence  of,  397 

John  of  Jerusalem,  rule  of,  101 

John  of  Leyden  permits  polygamy,  438 

John  of  Liege,  his  murder,  336 

John  of  Lisieux  fails  in  his  reforms,  265 

John  Merlaw  of  Fulda  relaxes  the  rules,  404 
John  of  Nieklaushausen,  his  heresy,  405 

John  of  Oberwesel,  407 

John  of  Pima,  378 

John  of  Rouen  enforces  celibacy,  256 

John  of  Salisbury  reforms  his  canons,  265 

John  of  Saxony,  his  treatment  of  mon¬ 
asteries,  435 

John  of  Schweidnitz,  his  death,  378 

John  of  Utrecht  reforms  the  nunneries,  340 
Jonas,  Justus,  on  Luther’3  marriage,  425 

Joseph  II.  (Emp.),  his  reforms,  583 

Jovian  on  marriage  of  nuns,  100 

Jovinian  on  Manichaeisrn,  46 

his  resistance  to  celibacy,  69 

Judah  and  Tamar,  21 

Judhael  of  Dol,  his  marriage,  259 

Julian  (Emp.)  on  Syrian  asceticism,  50 

Julian,  Cardinal,  legate  to  Ireland,  298 

Julius  II.  approves  of  Savonarola,  386 

Julius  III.  defends  Savonarola,  386  j 

grants  powers  to  Cardinal  Pole,  478 


his  bull  of  indulgence  to  England,  482  j 
he  reconvokes  the  Council  of  Trent, 521 


Julius  III.  on  treatment  of  Lutherans 

at  Trent,  521 

Julius  of  Wurzburg  argues  against 
clerical  marriage,  535 

Junia  the  apostle,  60 

Junqua,  Abbe,  case  of,  601 

Jurisdiction,  appellate,  effects  of,  140 

temporarily  surrendered,  334 

Jus  primao  noctis  354 

Jus  spolii  enforced  by  Robert  the  Fri¬ 
sian,  260 

Justification  by  works,  doctrine  of,  115 

in  Calvinism,  •  498 

in  Scotland,  506 

Justin  Martyr  on  morals  of  Christians,  33 
denounces  second  marriages,  36 

approves  of  mutilation,  40 

Justinian,  legislation  of,  86 

regulates  monachism,  108 


17ATIIERINE  of  Arragon  divorced, 
^  Katz,  his  work  on  celibacy, 


450 
584 

Keledeus,  or  Culdee,  299 

Killore,  John,  burnt,  510 

King’s  College  enriched  by  Henry  VIII., 448 
Kirkaldy  of  Grange,  503 

Kirkham,  Walter,  of  Durham,  prohib¬ 
its  marriage,  290 

Knade,  James,  first  married  priest  of 
Reformation,  419 

Knox,  John,  his  denunciation  of  Catho¬ 
lics,  506 

he  justifies  Beatoun’s  murder,  507 

his  Book  of  Discipline,  508 

his  disputation  with  Wynrame  and 
Arbuckle,  510 

his  confession  of  faith,  512 

Koch  of  Wiesbaden,  case  of,  601 

Kokkius,  Doctor,  on  clerical  morals,  396 
Kolderup-Rosenvinge,  bis  text  of 
Cnut’s  laws,  174 

Kopp,  Leonhard,  emancipates  nuns,  425 
Krishna,  similarity  of,  to  Christ,  92 

Kyle,  Lollards  of,  501 


ACORDAIRE  obtains  admission  of 


D  Dominicans,  614 

Lactantius  condemns  asceticism,  48 

reprobates  monachism,  98 

Ladak,  number  of  monks  in,  95 

Ladislas  II.  introduces  celibacy  in 
Hungary,  248 

Laetitia,  Madame,  patroness  of  charita¬ 
ble  orders,  613 

Lagreze  on  droit  de  marquette,  355 

Laillier,  Jean,  his  heresies,  408 

Laity  corrupted  bv  the  clergy,  265,  346, 


350,  429,  430,  518,  533,  586,  629 
in  favor  of  priestly  marriage,  252,  423  . 
in  favor  of  celibacy,  235,  465,  496 
require  pastors  to  keep  concubines, 

310,  353,  38S 

their  assistance  invoked  by  the 
church,  194,  232,  256,  257,  261, 

559,  560 

their  asceticism  in  11th  century,  241 
Lambert  of  Artois  enforces  celibacy,  262 


INDEX. 


663 


Lambertini,  Countess,  case  of,  631 

Lanciski,  Synod  of,  in  1197,  251 

Lands  of  Church  in  German  Reforma¬ 
tion,  434,  437,  439 

in  England,  454,  482 

in  Scotland,  508 

in  France,  589 

in  Sardinia,  609 

in  Italy,  610 

Lanfranc,  moderation  of  his  reforms, 

272,  273 

Langdon,  case  of  Abbot  of,  451 

Langdon,  Rev.  W.  C.,  on  clerical  mor¬ 
ality,  632 

Langlande  on  foreign  prelates,  290 

on  venality  of  officials,  293 

on  the  church,  444 

Languedoc,  Manichseism  in,  208 

Lanssac,  his  instructions  at  Trent,  517 

on  clerical  marriage  at  Trent,  533 

Lanzo  of  Milan,  209 

Laodicea,  Council  of,  in  352,  36,  60 

Laon,  case  of  subdeacon  of,  324 

La  Reole,  monks  of,  kill  St.  Abbo,  153 
Lasteyrie  on  clerical  corruption,  585 

Lateran,  first  Council  of,  in  1123,  313 

second  Council  of,  in  1139,  315 

fourth  Council  of,  in  1215,  327,  567 

fifth  Council  of,  in  1516,  413,  428 

Latimer,  Bishop,  concerned  in  bribing 

Cromwell,  454 

on  unworthy  promotions,  456 

his  imprisonment,  469 

Latin  clerks  in  Greek  church,  329 

Laurentius  Gallus,  349 

Lausanne,  clergy  of,  drive  out  their 

bishop,  341 

popular  complaints  in  1533,  429 

case  of  clerical  marriage  in,  601 

Lawney  and  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  469 
Lay  communion  in  both  elements,  44 

wine  withdrawn  from,  45 

demanded  by  the  Hussites,  384 

demands  for  it  in  16th  century, 

530,  536,  641 

conceded  to  and  withdrawn  from 
Germany,  541,  543 

Lazarists,  613-4 

Lead,  value  of,  in  English  monasteries,  459 
League  of  Schmalkalden  founded,  438 
Le  Bas,  number  of  ecclesiatics  of  France, 593 
Lebret,  President,  absolves  Girard,  580 
Legacies  to  church  restricted,  63 

Legitimation  of  priests’  children,  in 

1552,  476 

under  Elizabeth,  488 

letters  of,  in  Scotland,  506 

Leibnitz,  his  negotiations  with  Bossuet,  582 
Leigh,  Thomas,  on  morals  of  laity,  464 
Leighton,  Dr.,  his  report  of  monasteries, 451 
Leith,  Articles  of,  511 

Le  Mans,  bishop  of,  the  son  of  a  priest,  205 
Synod  of,  in  1248,  350 

Leo  I.  on  priestly  marriage  of  widows,  39 
on  communion  in  one  element,  44 

he  enforces  celibacy,  76 

on  virginity  of  nuns,  104 

on  disregard  of  vows,  105 

on  concubinage,  196 


Leo  III.  dispenses  St.  Swithin,  165 

Leo.  VIII.  permits  ordination  of 

priests’  sons,  148 

approves  statutes  of  St.  Martin  of 
Tours,  404 

Leo  IX.,  his  entry  in  Rome,  187 

he  commences  reform,  188 

endeavors  to  reform  the  Greek 
church,  191 

on  priestly  marriage  in  Lucca,  222 

his  death  and  canonization,  190 

Leo  X.,  his  character,  413 

he  honors  Savonarola,  386 

is  replied  to  by  Diet  of  Augsburg,  416 
he  excommunicates  Luther,  418 

his  efforts  at  reform,  428 

his  thanks  to  Henry  VIII.,  463 

Leo  XIII.  denounces  civil  marriage,  605 

Leo  and  Anthemius,  their  laws  on  mo- 
nachism,  108 

Leo  the  Isaurian  persecutes  monks,  90 

Leo  Marsicanus  on  Alberic,  153 

Leo  the  Philosopher,  legislation  of,  87 

forbids  marriage  in  orders,  90 

on  monachism,  109 

Leon,  Council  of,  in  1114,  307 

Leonistee,  the,  67 

Leopold  of  Tuscany  endeavors  to  re¬ 
form  nunneries,  573,  586 

Leptines,  Synod  of,  in  743,  131 

Lerida,  Council  of,  in  523,  80 

Leslie,  Norman,  murders  Cardinal 
Beatoun,  503 

Levirate  marriage  among  the  Jews,  21 

Levites,  hereditary  functions  of,  22 

Levitical  rule  of  virgin  marriage,  38 

maintained  in  Milan,  210 

Leyden,  John  of,  438 

Lhassa,  number  of  monks  in,  95 

Liber  Gomorrhianus,  188 

Libya,  married  bishops  in,  89 

Licentiousness  better  than  marriage, 

145,  201,  628 

Licenses  to  sin,  first  allusion  to,  in  1080,  257 
sale  of,  in  Denmark,  253 

condemned  by  Lateran  Council,  327 
continued  in  England, 

278,  280,  284,  289,  293 
in  France,  332 

in  Germany,  337 

in  Naples,  339 

condemned  by  Council  of  Bale,  396 
continued  throughout  15th  cen¬ 
tury,  312,  389,  401 

in  16th  century, 

428,  432,  433,  462,  526,  528,  559 
Liege,  Manichseism,  in  1025,  207 

priestly  marriage  in  12th  century,  247 
heretics  in,  371 

Bishop  of,  on  clerical  corruption,  530 
Council  of,  in  1131,  246,  314 

in  1548,  526,  530 

Lignana,  Girolamo,  his  attempt  to 
murder  St.  Charles,  551 

Lillebonne,  Council  of,  in  1080,  257 

Lima,  Councils  of,  in  1552-1601,  563-5 

Limitation  on  vows  in  France,  613 

Lincoln,  case  of  subdeacon  of,  321 

Lindet  of  Evreux,  his  marriage,  591 


664 


INDEX, 


Link,  Wences.,  his  marriage,  422 

Lippomani  condemns  Orzechowski,  541 

Lisieux,  case  of  archdeacon  of,  349 

Council  of,  in  1055,  256 

Litchfield,  Saxon  Bishop  of,  272 

visitation  of  diocese  of,  452 

Livonia,  hereditary  priesthood  in,  336 

Livres  de  Jostice  et  de  Piet,  321 

Llorente  on  abuse  of  confessional, 

569,  572-3 

Lodi,  turbulence  of  married  priests  at,  202 
Loi  Falloux  of  1850,  614,  617 

Lolhard,  Walter,  377 

Lollards,  the,  381 

of  Kyle,  501 

Lombardo-Venitia,  number  of  clergy  in, 630 
Lombardy  independent  of  Rome,  219 

submits  to  Rome,  221 

Lomenie  of  Sens,  his  marriage,  591 

London,  Dr.,  his  career,  457 

on  false  relics,  458 

on  permission  of  marriage  of  nuns,  466 
on  ejected  monks,  469 

London,  married  priests  deprived  in 

1554,  478 

enumeration  of  married  priests  in,  489 

Council  of,  in  1075,  272 

in  1102,  273 

in  1108,  277 

in  1126,  279 

in  1129,  280 

in  1200,  288 

in  1237,  288 

in  1268,  291 

Lords,  House  of,  delays  priestly  mar¬ 
riage,  472 

Loretto,  Episcopal  Convention  of,  in 
1850,  626 

Lorraine,  Cardinal  of,  his  instructions 

at  Trent,  533 

endeavors  to  enforce  chastity,  559 

Lothair  (Emp.)  aids  to  enforce  celi¬ 
bacy,  246 

visits  Fulda,  404 

Louis-le-Debonnaire  on  monastic  im¬ 
postors,  115 

his  reforms,  136 

prohibits  phlebotomy  to  monks,  138 

Louis-le-Gros,  his  charter  to  St.  Corne¬ 
lius,  270 

Louis  IX.  arbitrates  for  the  d’Avesnes,  323 

Louis  XII.  and  relics  of  St.  Denis,  217 

Louis  XV.  reforms  monastic  orders,  585 

his  arrests  of  brothel-haunting 
priests,  586 

Louis-Philippe  adverse  to  monachism,  614 

Louvain,  University  of,  urges  reform,  529 

Synod  of,  in  1556,  541 

in  1574,  561 

Loyola,  his  reformation  of  Spain,  517 

Luanus,  monasteries  founded  by,  160 

Lucca,  priestly  marriage  in,  222 

Lucius  II.  on  hereditary  priesthood,  281 

Lucius  III.  on  sacraments  of  sinful 

priests,  195 

on  hereditary  benefices,  322 

confirms  the  Order  of  the  Temple,  363 

condemns  the  Waldenses,  373 

Lucretia  Borgia,  345 


Ludegna,  Juan,  his  disputation  on 
priestly  marriage,  535 

Luna,  Dona  Agueda  de,  572 

Lunden,  Archbishop  of,  on  priestly 
marriage,  252 

Lupus  of  Troyes  on  celibacy,  79 

Lupus,  Christian,  on  Paphnutius,  57 

on  Tridentine  canons,  640 

Luther,  his  place  in  the  Reformation,  413 
his  ninety-five  propositions,  417 

his  gradual  progress,  418 

he  hesitates  as  to  priestly  marriage,  420 
he  approves  of  priestly  marriage,  422 
his  marriage,  425 

his  opinions  on  marriage,  426 

he  opposes  the  Anabaptists,  438 

he  fraternizes  with  Orthodox 
Brethren,  385 

he  reprints  Caraffa’s  “  Concilium,”  523 
Sir  Thomas  More’s  assault  on  him, 440 
Lutheranism  caused  by  clerical  im¬ 
morality,  514,  516,  518,  527,  529 
its  spread  in  Bohemia,  384 

Lutherans,  the,  adopt  the  Waldenses,  375 
they  object  to  Council  held  at 
Mantua,  520 

their  treatment  at  Trent,  521 

they  decline  further  participation,  522 
Luxury,  uses  of,  358 

Lyons,  Poor  Men  of,  373 

Lyons,  effect  of  papal  court  on,  342 

suppression  of  unauthorized  orders 
in,  622 

Council  of,  in  583,  80 

in  1274,  328,  336,  351 

in  1528,  515 

in  1850,  626 

Lyons,  Huguenot  Synod  of,  in  1563,  38,  499 


MACAULAY,  Lord,  on  Anglican 

clergy,  497 

Macedonia,  celibacy  enforced  in,  86 

Macliaus  of  Britanny,  case  of,  119 

Macon,  Council  of,  in  581,  80,  119 

Msesse-begnes,  wer-geld  of,  173 

Magdeburg  Centuriators,  their  mis¬ 
take,  162 

Council  of,  in  1403,  353 

troubles  of,  in  1431,  395 

Mahavira,  legend  of,  35 

Mahue  of  S.  Sulpice,  case  of,  592 

Maiden  Bradley,  prior  of,  his  morals,  458 

Maillard,  Olivier,  his  sermon,  399 

Mainardo,  Card.,  his  mission  to  Milan,  217 
Mainerio  Boccardo,  will  of,  221 

Mainz,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  230 

revolt  against  Rodolf  of  Swabia,  236 

Diet  of,  in  1085,  239 

annates  of,  412 

Archbishop  of,  asks  for  clerical 
marriage,  539 

Council  of,  in  888,  138 

in  1049,  189 

in  1075,  231 

in  1225,  337 

in  1261,  338,  376 

in  1527,  423 

in  1549,  528 


INDEX. 


665 


Majorian,  laws  of,  respecting  nuns,  105 

Malachi,  St.,  his  reforms,  296 

his  death,  •  297 

Malatesta,  Carlo,  interferes  with  con¬ 
cubinage,  339 

Mallet,  Abbe,  case  of,  635 

Malone,  Malachi,  on  dispensations,  541 

Malta,  Knights  of,  362,  366 

suppressed  in  England,  458 

Manasses  of  Rheims,  his  violent  meas¬ 
ures,  261 

Maneioof  Chalons,  his  indecision,  142 

Manes,  career  of,  43 

Manfredonia,  Council  of,  in  1567,  553 

Manichteism,  influence  of,  43 

indulgences  and  Eucharist  in,-  44 

revival  of,  in  llth  century,  207 

prevalent  in  Milan,  211 

opposed  by  St.  Bernard,  331 

of  Albigenses,  367 

Manigold  of  Veringen,  case  of,  235 

Mansfeld,  married  priest  of,  419 

Mantua,  Council  of,  in  1053,  190 

in  1067,  202 

Council  of  Trent  to  be  held  at,  519 

Mapes,  Walter,  his  satirical  verses,  289 

Mar  Aba  prohibits  priestly  marriage,  92 

Marcellin,  Abbe,  on  droit  de  marquette,354 
Marcian  (Emp.)  restricts  monachism,  107 

Marcion,  heresy  of,  33 

Marcus,  heresy  of,  33 

Margaret  of  Flanders,  case  of,  323 

Margaret  of  Parma  delays  reception 
of  Council  of  Trent,  547 

Mariana  on  married  clergy  of  Spain,  303 

Marian  Order,  366 

Marien,  frere,  case  of,  637 

Marillac,  Bishop  Charles  de,  on  cleri¬ 
cal  discipline,  559 

Marino,  a  married  priest,  180 

Marino  of  Ostia  condemns  priestly 
marriage,  149 

Marisco,  Adam  de,  292 

Marozia,  her  power,  144 

Marquardo  dei  Susani  on  celibacy,  547 

Marquette,  droit  de,  354 

Marriage  exalted  by  Christ,  26 

in  Apostolic  Constitutions  and 
Canons,  48 

abstinence  from,  among  early 
Christians,  32 

heresies  condemning,  31 

orthodox  condemnation  of,  45 

depreciation  of,  by  Chrysostom,  86 

comparative  merit  of,  46,  47,  318,  347 
abhorrence  of,  by  Manichmans,  43 

by  Albigenses,  208,  367 

orthodox  embarrassment  concern¬ 
ing,  369 

disregard  of,  in  llth  century,  182 

in  Ireland,  295,  297,  298 

Wickliffe’s  view  of,  381 

permitted  to  those  under  vows,  100 

not  dissolved  by  monastic  vows,  114 

indissoluble  in  early  church,  314 

dissolved  by  orders  and  vows  in 
12th  century,  313 

effect  of  vows  upon,  321 


worse  than  licentiousness,  145,  201,  628 


Marriage,  clerical,  is  incest,  628 

sacrament  of,  inferior  to  ordination, 642 
of  Martin  Luther,  425 

of  Albert  of  Brandenburg,  434 

of  converts  to  Calvinism,  499 

in  orders  forbidden,  39,  77 

persisted  in  80 

forbidden  in  the  East,  86 

custom  of  Greek  church,  89,  90 
permitted  among  Nestorians,  92 
anathematized  at  Trent,  536 

in  Spanish  military  orders,  363,  364 
Marriage  of  abbots,  Hungary,  15th 
century,  401 

Ma.rriage  of  bishops,  prohibited  in 

orders,  39 

in  4th  century,  58 

in  Greek  chureh,  87,  91 

practised  in  Africa,  89 

in  Frankish  Gaul,  119 

in  Gothic  Spain,  121 

in  8th  century,  132 

in  10th  century,  154,  155 

in  llth  century,  181,  189,  197,  198 
separated  from  their  wives  in 
Hungary,  249 

in  Ireland,  295 

treatment  of,  under  Mary,  479 

Marriage  of  deaconesses  punished,  96 

Marriage  of  monks  permitted  in  4th 

century,  58 

forbidden  by  Justinian,  108 

and  by  Gregory  I.,  113 

St.  Bernard  on,  316 

common  in  9th  century,  139 

in  12th  century,  324,  326 

in  14th  century,  340 

in  15th  century,  401,  403 

in  Reformation,  420 

dispensations  refused  them,  442 

Marriage  of  nuns  a  capital  crime,  100 

is  binding,  103,  104,  105 

common  in  5th  century,  110 

in  7th  century,  115 

in  Merovingian  France,  120 

in  Gothic  Spain,  121 

in  Italy,  in  8th  century,  127 

forbidden  in  8th  century,  132,  135,  137 
common  in  9th  century,  139 

in  10th  century,  163,  166 

in  14th  century,  340 

in  15th  century,  403 

in  Reformation,  425,  435 

under  Henry  VIII.,  466 

in  France  in  1581,  500 

in  French  Revolution,  593 

Marriage  of  priests  in  early  church, 

27-30,  48 

restricted  to  single  marriage,  37 

and  with  virgins,  38 

forbidden  in  orders,  39 

forbidden  in  Manichaeism,  45 

and  by  Council  of  Elvira,  50 

but  not  by  Council  of  Nicsea,  54 
first  prohibition,  in  385,  64 

prohibition  gradually  enforced  in 
Western  church,  66-82 

custom  of  Eastern  church,  89 

common  in  Gothic  Spain,  121 


666 


INDEX. 


Marriage  of  priests  common  in  Italy 


in  6th  and  8th  centuries,  122,  127 
in  Merovingian  France,  119-20 

prohibited  in  8th  century,  133-5 

reappears  in  9th  century,  142 

common  in  10th  century, 

148,  150,  152,  155,  158 
in  British  church,  159 

in  Saxon  England,  167,  169,  172 

in  Wales,  171 

universal  in  11th  century,  181 

in  southern  Italy,  197 

in  Tuscany,  199 

creates  a  political  party  in  1061,  200 

becomes  a  heresy,  201 

struggle  over,  in  Lombardy,  210-21 
persecution  of,  234 

penalties  inflicted  on,  242 

in  Bohemia,  245 

in  Germany,  247 

in  Hungary,  248-9 

in  Dalmatia,  250 

in  Poland,  251 

in  Sweden,  252 

in  Denmark,  253 

in  Friesland,  254 

in  France,  255,  270 

in  Normandy,  256 

in  Britanny,  259 

in  Flanders,  260 

in  England,  272-91 

in  Wales,  294 

in  Ireland,  in  16th  century,  299 

in  Scotland,  299 

in  Spain,  303 

delay  in  abrogating  it,  305 

forbidden  by  Alfonso  the 

Wise,  308 

irrregular,  continued,  311 

St.  Bernard  on,  316 

Gratian  on,  317 

advocated  by  Alexander  III.,  325 
condemned  by  Wickliffe,  379 

allowed  by  Lollards,  381 

condemned  by  Hussites,  384 

allowed  by  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  385 
and  by  Orthodox  Brethren,  385 
advocated  in  15th  century,  405 

commencement  of,  in  Reformation,  419 
demanded  by  Zwingli,  421 

accepted  by  Luther,  422 

favored  by  the  people,  423 

persecuted  by  the  church,  423 

recognized  by  the  Interim,  441 

dispensations  granted  b.y  Paul  III.,  442 
recognized  by  Transaction  of  Pas* 
sau,  443 

advocated  in  England  in  1530,  461 

commencement  of,  in  England,  462-5 
refused  by  Henry  VIII.,  461-4 

a  capital  offence  under  the  Six 
Articles,  468 

permitted  under  Edward  VI.,  472 
popular  repugnance  for,  475,  476 

suppressed  under  Mary,  478 

admitted  by  Elizabeth,  488 

a  matter  of  Anglican  faith,  475,  490 
effects  of  its  uncertainty  on  Angli¬ 
can  clergy,  497 


I 


I 


Marriage  of  priests  a  matter  of  course 

in  Calvinism,  498,  510 

dispensations  for,  sale  of,  522 

demanded  of  Council  of  Trent,  529-33 
prevalence  of,  531-2 

disastrous  consequences  to  church,  535 
prejudged  at  Trent,  534-6 

asked  for  by  German  princes  and 
prelates,  539-43 

condemned  as  heresy  at  Trent, 

536,  640-2 

papal  dispensations  for,  541 

refused  by  Pius  IV.,  545 

in  post-Tridentine  church,  554 

denounced  by  Inquisition,  556 

demand  for,  in  18th  century,  582-4 
in  French  Revolution,  590-4 

under  the  Concordat,  596-8 

varying  policy  in  France,  599-601 
attempted  revival  in  modern  times, 


601,  606 


accepted  by  Old  Catholics,  604 

in  the  United  States,  607 

Marriage  of  subdeacon  valid,  324 

Marriage,  civil,  605-7 

Marriage  with  Christ  by  taking  the 

veil,  104 

Marriages,  second,  commanded  by  St. 

Paul,  96 

objected  to,  33 

regarded  as  adulterous,  36 

forbidden  to  priesthood,  37 

St.  Augustin  on,  74 

legislation  against,  86,  89 

in  11th  century,  202,  210 

Married  men,  admission  of,  to  orders,  76,  79 

Married  nuns,  divorce  of,  480 

Married  priests,  their  audacious  de¬ 
mands  in  8th  century,  132 

their  divorce,  470 

numbers  ejected  under  Queen  Mary, 480 
penance  inflicted  on,  481 

not  permitted  to  leave  the  church, 

424,  484 

enumeration  of,  in  England,  489 

Marsico,  priests  of,  defend  their  con¬ 
cubines,  339 

Marsiglio  of  Padua  on  confessional,  350 

“  Marthas  ”  of  Franciscans,  353 

Martin  I.,  his  advice  to  Amandus,  126 

Martin  V.,  bis  election,  391 

his  favors  to  John  XXIII.,  344 

condemns  the  Begghards,  377 

his  attempts  at  reform,  392 

Martin,  St.,  on  marriage,  47 

Martin,  case  of,  in  1817-21,  599 

Martin  of  Battle  Abbey,  282 

Martin  of  Camin  on  clerical  morals,  402 

tries  to  reform  his  clergy,  496 

Martin,  St.,  of  Leon,  his  dialectics,  371 

Martin  of  Marseilles,  marriage  of,  592 

Martin,  Dr.  T.,  at  trial  of  Cranmer,  190 

his  treatise  on  celibacy,  480 

Martyrdom,  its  comparison  with  vir¬ 
ginity,  46 

of  English  monks,  450 

Marullus  on  Innocent  VIII.,  345 

Mary,  St.,  of  Egypt,  98 

Mary  of  Guise,  her  policy,  507 


INDEX 


667 


Mary,  Queen,  her  obsequies  of  Ed¬ 
ward  VI.,  477 

her  death,  486 

Mass,  disputation  on,  Scotland,  in  1560,  507 
Masses  for  the  dead,  copied  from  Maz- 

deism,  44 

maintained  by  Henry  VIII.,  454 

Masses  of  married  priests  to  be  rejected, 

194,  227,  246,  256,  274 
Massieu  of  Beauvais,  his  marriage,  591 

Massipia,  legalized  concubines,  197 

Materialism  of  Mosaic  Law,  21 

Maternity,  dissuasions  from,  347 

Mathison,  John,  and  the  Anabaptists,  438 
Matilda,  Countess,  and  married  priests 
of  Lucca,  222 

Matrimony,  Tridentine  canons  on, 


534-6,  640-1 


Matthew  Paris  on  Milanese  heresies,  211 

Matthew  of  Salzburg,  his  attempted 
reforms,  518 

Matthias  Corvinus  on  priestly  morals,  401 

Maud  of  Ramsbury,  281 

Mauger  of  Rouen,  his  character,  156 

Mauleon,  Mdlle.  Desvieux  de,  582 

Maultrot,  his  answer  to  Gaudin,  584 

Maurice  of  Saxony,  441,  443 

Maurice  de  Sully,  powers  granted  to,  322 

Maurilio,  St.,  of  Rouen,  156 

Mauritanian  nuns,  case  of,  104 

Maximilian  II.  asks  for  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  543 

his  requests  refused,  545 

Maya,  mother  of  Buddha,  35 

Mayer,  Dr.,  on  clerical  corruption,  557 

Mayer’s  dissertation  on  Cath.  von  Bora,  425 
Mazdeism,  character  of,  22 

its  Messiah,  35 

its  Izeshne  sacrifice,  44 

Meat,  abstinence  from,  not  recom¬ 
mended,  48 

use  of,  forbidden  by  Manes,  43 

and  by  Albigenses,  208,  367 

Meaux,  Bishop  of,  his  propositions  con¬ 
demned,  382 

Mechlin,  regulation  of  confessionals,  574 

discussion  as  to  solicitation  in,  576 

clerical  morals  in,  628 

Synods  of,  in  1570  and  1607,  561 

Medicine,  incompatibility  of,  with 
priesthood,  227 

Meinhard  of  Treves,  misfortunes  of,  248 

Melanchthon  on  Luther’s  marriage,  425 

prepares  the  Confession  of  Augs¬ 
burg,  436 

seeks  conference  with  Sorbonne,  440 

argues  with  Henry  VIII.,  466 

remonstrates  with  him,  470 

Melchoir  of  Wurzburg  on  condition  of 
clergy,  528 

Melfi,  Council  of,  in  1059,  197 

in  1089,  242 

in  1284,  329,  339 

in  1597,  553 

M61isse,  frere,  case  of,  637 

Melun,  Assembly  of,  in  1579,  556 

Men  of  Intelligence,  385 

Mena,  Father,  case  of,  579 

Menco,  Abbot,  on  priestly  marriage,  254 


Mendelsham,  Vicar  of,  his  marriage,  465 
Mendicant  Orders,  the,  375 

Mendicancy  of  Begghards  condemned,  377 
Mendicancy  disapproved  by  Wicklifie,  379 
forbidden  in  Reformation,  420 

Mcndieta  on  Spanish  colonial  church,  564 
Merit,  comparative,  of  virginity  and 
marriage,  46,  47,  318,  347,  536,  641 
Merseburg,  priestly  marriage  demand¬ 


ed  by  people  of,  441 

Messiah,  the,  of  Mazdeism,  35 

Methodius  converts  Bohemia,  244 

Metz,  sons  of  priests  ordained  in,  154 

Council  of,  in  895.  138 

in  1604  and  1610,  562 


Mexico,  Councils  of,  in  1555  and  1585, 

563, 665-6 


corruption  of  its  church,  563-6 

Michelet  on  abuse  of  confessional,  573 
Milan,  struggle  over  celibacy  in,  207-221 
prevalence  of  Manichaeism  in,  211 
its  independence  of  Rome,  210 

its  submission  to  Rome,  213,  221 
Synod  of,  in  1098,  221 

in  1565  and  1582,  553 

reforms  of  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  550-2 
Episcopal  Convocation,  in  1849,  626 

Military  bishops  in  10th  and  11th  cen¬ 
turies,  153, 180 

Military  Orders,  the,  362 

Military  service  enforced  on  monks,  99 
Mill,  Walter,  his  trial,  510 

Milo  of  Rheims,  case  of,  123 

Minden,  Dean  of,  miracle  occurring  to,  266 
Mingrat,  Abbe,  case  of,  635 

Minims,  corruption  of,  562 

Minimum  age  for  vows,  585,  587,  611 
for  ordination,  624 

for  resident  women,  626 

Ministers,  Calvinist,  strictness  of  rules,  499 
Minors,  irrevocable  engagements  by,  611 
Minucius,  Felix,  on  morals  of  Christians, 33 
on  second  marriages,  36 

Minuto,  Cardinal,  his  mission  to  Milan, 217 
Mirabeau  advocates  clerical  marriage,  590 
Miracles  in  support  of  celibacy, 

170,  236,  334 
by  married  priests,  180 

to  enforce  morality,  266 

false,  458 

Misnia,  the  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  385 
priestly  marriage  in,  419 

Missionary  work  of  monachism,  113 

Missions,  abuse  of  confessional  in,  578 
Missions  Etrang&res,  the,  614 

Mithraic  worship  in  Rome,  43 

Mixed  tribunal  for  married  priests,  257 
Modena,  trouble  with  married  priests 
in,  222 


Molanus,  his  negotiation  with  Bossuet,  582 


Monachism,  94 

its  Buddhist  prototype,  95 

commencement  of,  97 

originally  temporary,  101 

rules  of  Greek  church,  107 

difficulties  of  the  West,  109 

Western,  practical  character  of,  112 

rendered  irrevocable  by  Gregory  I., 113 

benefits  of,  113 


668 


INDEX. 


Monachism,  disorders  of,  under  Carlo 


vingians,  137,  139 

reforms  in  10th  century,  152 

in  Irish  church,  160,  295 

Anglo-Saxon,  163,  173,  176 

condition  of,  in  France,  264 

in  early  Scottish  church,  299 

degrading  regulations  of,  332 

influence  of,  357 


demoralization  in  15th  century, 

340,  392,  393,  399,  403 
ridiculed  by  Erasmus,  415 

opposition  to,  in  Reformation,  421 
position  of,  in  Reformation,  437,  439 
overthrown  by  Wolsey,  447 

effort  to  enforce  discipline,  in  1549,526 
its  description  by  Cassander,  543 
its  abolition  recommended,  523,  573 
its  influence  on  solicitation,  573 

corruption  of  post-Tridentine,  562 
in  Spanish  Colonies,  565 

corruption  in  18th  century,  585,  586 
its  abolition  recommended,  587 

subjected  to  the  State,  in  1760,  585 

its  modern  vicissitudes,  608-21 

Monasteries,  residence  in,  enforced  in 


the  East, 

107 

not  necessary  in  the  West, 

115 

subjected  to  the  bishops, 

134 

women  excluded  from, 

403 

treatment  of,  in  Reformation, 

435 

English,  their  immorality, 

451 

suppression  of,  by  Wolsey, 

448 

and  by  Henry  VIII., 

454 

means  used  for, 

457 

financial  results  of, 

460 

suppression  of,  in  Austria, 

584 

in  France, 

689 

in  Spain, 

608 

in  Italy, 

609 

in  South  America, 

609 

Monastic  habit,  salvation  ensured  by,  335 
Monks,  persecuted  by  the  Iconoclasts,  90 
number  of,  in  Coptic  church,  93 

subjected  to  military  service,  99 

wandering,  described  by  Augustin, 102 
and  by  St.  Benedict,  110 

and  by  Smaragdus,  115  j 

political  influence  of,  106  ! 

confined  to  their  convents,  107  ' 

their  wives  must  become  nuns,  114 
punishment  of  unchastity,  103,  131  j 
custom  of  letting  blood,  138  ; 

secular  life  of,  in  10th  century,  152 
as  priests  in  Anglo-Saxon  England, 174 
married  priests  replaced  with,  275 
residence  of,  with  nuns,  in  Spain,  305 
ordered  to  sleep  singly,  332 

ridiculed  by  Von  Hutten,  416 

fate  of  English,  460 

ejected.held  to  chastity,  in  England, 469 
unfit  to  be  confessors, 

432,  569,  572,  577,  587 
marriage  of  (see  Marriage). 

Monluc  of  Valence,  his  marriage,  499 
his  description  of  French  clergy,  515 
Montanists  denounce  second  marriages,  36 
Montariol,  Abbey  of,  and  droit  de  mar- 
quette,  354 


Monte  Casino,  foundation  of,  111 

Carloman  becomes  a  monk  there,  133 
Abbe}7  of,  in  10th  century,  153 

preservation  of,  in  1866,  609 

Monza,  clerical  marriage  in  1152,  221 

Barnabite  college  at,  case  of,  621 

Morales,  Ambrosio,  case  of,  40 

Morality,  reformed  by  early  Christians,  32 
of  Puritanism,  357 

of  Scottish  Reformers,  509 

artificial  standard  of,  269,  347,  349,  627 
Morals,  clerical,  described  by  Cyprian,  41 
by  Tertullian,  42 

reforms  at  Council  of  Nicaea,  54 

how  affected  by  introduction  of 
celibacy,  78 

as  described  by  Salvianus,  81 

by  Council  of  Elvira,  99 

by  St.  Jerome,  100 

of  monks,  described  by  St. Augustin, 102 
by  St.  Benedict,  110 

by  St.  Isidor  of  Seville,  115 

by  Smaragdus,  115 

of  bishops  in  Merovingian  France,  119 
of  clergy  in  Gothic  Spain,  121 

in  Italy,  in  8th  century,  127 

in  France,  in  8th  century,  128 

in  9th  century,  136 

in  Italy,  in  10th  century,  145,  147,  153 
in  England,  in  10th  century,  167 

in  11th  century,  172 

in  monasteries,  in  llth  century,  188 

of  bishops,  in  llth  century,  198 

of  married  clergy,  in  llth  century,  202 

in  Milan,  210 

in  Germany,  in  12th  century,  247 

in  France,  in  12th  century,  264 

worse  than  laity,  265,  346, 

350,  429*  430,  518,  533,  586,  629 
in  England,  in  12th  century,  281 

in  13th  century,  293 

in  Ireland,  in  14th  century,  299 

in  Scotland,  in  13th  century,  301 

in  Spain,  in  14th  century,  311 

in  church  of  12th  century,  321,  326 

of  13th  century,  331 

in  monasteries  in  14th  century,  340 

in  papal  court,  341 

in  mediaeval  church,  350 

in  military  orders,  364 

in  Bohemian  church,  383 

in  15th  century,  388 

in  16th  century,  427,  515-33 

in  English  church  of  16th  century,  447 

in  English  monasteries,  45P 

of  clergy  of  Bangor,  463 

in  Scottish  church,  501  sqq. 

in  German  church  described  by 

Cassander  and  Wicelius,  542-3 
after  Council  of  Trent,  548 

in  Rome,  in  16th  century,  549 


in  post-Tridentine  church  of  Italy, 

550-3 

in  Bavaria  and  Bohemia,  554,  556 
in  the  Low  Countries,  557 

in  France,  559 

in  confessional,  566-77 

atlected  by  casuistry,  578 

in  18th  century,  585-8 


INDEX. 


669 


Morals  of  monachal  educators,  619-21 
in  the  modern  church,  624-37 

More,  Sir  Thomas,  his  position,  445 

appointed  Chancellor,  449 

on  sheep-fapming,  474 

Morone,  Cardinal,  asked  to  aid  in  fur¬ 
thering  clerical  marriage,  541 

Morrison,  Sir  Richard,  on  resumption 
of  church  lands,  483 

Mortal  sin,  Wickliffe’s  definition  of,  379 

Morton,  Archbishop,  his  visitation,  399 

Mosaic  Law,  materialism  of,  21 

Mothers,  residence  of,  forbidden,  138,  331 
Mount  Lebanon,  Synod  of,  in  1736,  91 

Mozarabic  ritual,  contest  over,  304 

Mucius,  his  blind  obedience,  102 

Muhlberg,  battle  of,  441 

Mulieres  subintroductm,  forbidden  by 

Council  of  Nicaea,  53 

allowed  in  modern  times,  626 

Muncer  and  the  Anabaptists,  438 

Munster,  Council  of,  in  1279,  575 

in  1652,  558 

impossibility  of  reform, in  16th  cent., 548 
proportion  of  clergy  in,  631 

Mutilation,  practice  of,  40 

Mutil6s  de  Russie,  sect  of,  41 

Mylitta,  21 

Mynecena,  173 

Myrc,  John,  his  Instructions,  400 

on  confessor  and  penitent,  574 

Myrror  of  Justice  on  married  clerks,  291 

Mystic  rewards  of  virginity,  347 


\TALANDA,  Buddhist  monastery  of,  95 
Namur,  Synods  of,  in  1604  and  1639,562 


in  1698,  576 

in  1742,  577 

Nanno  of  Verona  protects  married 
priests,  151 

Nantes,  Council  of,  in  895,  138 

Edict  of,  500 

Naples,  children  of  ecclesiastics  in,  335 

position  of  priests’  concubines  in,  339 
tax  on  concubines  in,  399 


clerical  marriage  proposed  in  18th 


century,  583 

numbers  of  clergy  in,  588,  631 

civil  marriage  in,  606,  607 

restrictions  on  monachism  in  1820,  609 
Council  of,  in  1576,  553 

in  1699,  574 

Napoleon  I.  reestablishes  religion,  595 
prohibits  clerical  marriage,  597 

Napoleon  III.  favors  monachism,  614,  617-8 
Narbonne,  Council  of,  in  1551,  516 

in  1609,  560 


Nature,  crimes  against,  137,  332,  548 
Nausea,  Frederic,  on  priestly  marriage,  423 


Nazirate,  the  Jewish,  22 

Neocaesarea,  Council  of,  in  314,  36,  51 

Neo-Platonism,  influence  of,  39 

Nestorians,  the,  91,  92 

Netherlands,  reception  of  Council  of 

Trent,  547,  553 

troubles  of,  caused  by  clerical  cor¬ 
ruption,  557 

restrictions  on  monachism,  609 


Neustria,  reforms  in,  132 

New  Grenada,  corruption  of  church  in,  563 
abuse  of  confessional  in,  572 

suppression  of  monasteries  in,  609 
Nicaea,  Council  of,  its  relation  to  celibacy,  53 
celibacy  attributed  to,  555 

Nicaea,  canon  of,  its  enforcement,  84 

renewed  by  Greek  church,  91 

enforced  by  Gregory  I.,  124 

enforcement  attempted  in  744,  132 

in  9th  century,  136 

in  England,  in  12th  century,  277 
by  Council  of  Coyanza,  in  1050,  303 
in  Anglican  church,  494 

applied  to  female  relatives, 138,  331,  628 
relaxation  of,  in  1536  and  1548,  518,  525 
by  Council  of  Trent,  538 

efforts  to  enforce,  in  17th  century,  561 
disregarded  in  modern  times,  626 
Nicetas  Pectoratus,  his  defence  of 
Greek  church,  191 

Nicholas  de  Clemanges  (see  Clemanges), 
Nicholas  I.  enforces  the  rule  of  celibacy,  139 
his  relaxation  of  the  rules,  141 

on  sacraments  of  sinful  priests,  194 
Nicholas  II.,  his  election,  192 

his  reforms,  194,  197,  199 

he  intervenes  in  Milanese  troubles,  213 
his  canons  on  celibacy  renewed,  227 
he  enforces  celibacy  in  France,  255 
his  death,  200 

Nicholas  III.,  his  efforts  with  Greek 
church,  328 

Nicholas  V.,  regulations  of,  397 

Nicholas  the  deacon,  34 

Nicolites,  heresy  of,  34 

priestly  marriage  ascribed  to,  191,  201 
married  priests  stigmatized  as,  211 
abjuration  of,  in  Milan,  214 

condemnation  by  C.  of  Piacenza,  221 
in  Germany,  in  12th  century,  318 
Nigel  of  Ely,  his  revolt,  281 

Niklaushausen,  Hans  of,  405 

Nimptschen,  escape  of  nuns  from,  425 
Nismes,  residence  of  relatives  forbidden, 332 
Noailles,  Cardinal,  on  absolution  by 
guilty  confessor,  576 

Nobla  Leyczon,  La,  373,  374 

Nomocanon  of  Photius,  87 

Norbert,  St.,  reforms  effected  by,  265 

Nordhausen,  Council  of,  in  1105,  244 

Norfolk,  married  priests  ejected  in,  480 
Norfolk,  Duke  of,  suppresses  the  Pil¬ 
grimage  of  Grace,  456 

introduces  the  Six  Articles,  467 

Normandy,  condition  of  church  in  10th 

century,  155 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in  12th 
century,  268,  319 

North,  Sir  Edward,  obtains  the  Char¬ 
ter-House,  451 

Northmen,  effect  of  their  incursions,  139 
Northumberland,  Earl  of,  his  insurrec¬ 
tion  in  1569,  496 

Northumbrian  priests,  rules  for,  168 

Norway,  rights  of  illegitimates  in,  197 
Nowell,  Dean,  on  Council  of  Trent,  537 
Nucius,  Nicander,  on  English  monas¬ 
teries,  452,  458,  469 


670 


INDEX. 


Nullity  of  marriage  in  orders  intro¬ 
duced  in  1 1 23,  31 3  1 

at  Council  of  Trent,  536  i 

Nunneries,  disorders  of,  under  Carlo- 

vingians,  137 

in  10th  century,  152 

in  12th  century,  264,  282,  318 
in  13th  century,  268 

in  14th  century,  340 

in  15th  century,  389,  393,  399 

in  16th  century,  451,  526,  527 

abuse  of  confessional  in,  572 

Nuns,  shaving  of  head  prohibited,  104 

punishment  for  unchastity,  131 

seduction  of,  a  capital  offence,  136 

their  scandalous  lives  under  Car- 


lovingians,  137 

test  for  their  virtue,  292 

their  residence  with  monks,  in 
Spain,  305 

wives  of  monks  must  become,  324 

ordered  to  sleep  singly,  332 

Lollard  denunciations  of  them,  3S1 

apostate,  claimed  by  the  church,  424 

their  emancipation,  in  the  Ref¬ 
ormation,  425,  427,  435 

ejected,  held  to  chastity  in  England,  469 
their  numbers  in  England,  471 

married,  divorce  of,  480 

their  corruption  by  confessors, 

523,  574,  586,  588 
their  trial  by  Inquisition,  588 

secularized  in  Italy,  610 

marriage  of  (see  Marriage). 

Niirnburg,  Diet  of,  in  1522,  424,  431 

in  1523,  69,  413,  424 

secularization  of  Augustinians,  425 

friars  deprived  of  superintendence 
of  nuns,  432  ' 


Nurses  of  priests’  children,  their  posi¬ 
tion,  306  i 

Nursia,  priest  of,  case  of,  124 


AATH  of  Knight  Templars,  362 

prescribed  for  French  clergy,  5S9 
Obedience,  monachal,  nature  of,  102 

Observances  common  to  Catholicism 

and  Buddhism,  35 

and  Mazdeism,  44 

Odo  of  Canterbury,  his  indifference  to 
celibacy,  166 

Odo  of  Toul  on  relaxation  of  discipline,  326 
Ogil by ,  Marion,  503 

Old  Catholics,  schism  of,  604 

Olmutz,  Synod  of,  in  1342,  338 

in  1413,  383 

in  1591,  555 

Oral  Law,  development  of,  24 

burdens  imposed  by,  26 

Orange,  Council  of,  in  441,  60,  76 

Ordeal,  its  use  in  ecclesiastical  trials,  140 
Ordericus  Vitalis,  156,  176 

Order  of  widows,  apostolic,  96 

Orders,  military,  the,  362 

mendicant,  the,  375 

Orders,  religious,  their  abolition  recom¬ 
mended,  523,  587 


unauthorized, suppressed  in  France, 621 


Orders,  holy,  in  Wicklifife’s  reforms,  379 
Ordination  dissolves  marriage,  313,  536 
indelible  under  Wicklifle,  379 

in  modern  France,  600-1 

minimum  age  for,  624 

sacrament  of,  attacked  by  Luther,  418 
superior  to  marriage,  314,  642 
Oriesis,  St.,  rule  of,  101 

Origen,  asceticism  condemned  by,  33 

his  self-mutilation,  40 

Origenism,  influence  of,  86 

Original  sin,  Council  of  Trent  on,  640 

Orihuella,  Council  of,  in  1600,  557,  562,574 

Orleans,  Council  of,  in  511,  80 

in  533,  60,  80 

in  538,  69,  80 

in  541  and  549,  80 

Ormanetto,  Niccolo,  his  mission  to 
Bavaria,  536 

Orthodox  Brethren,  the,  375,  385 

Orzechowski,  Stanislas,  case  of,  540 

O'ber,  Council  of,  in  1062,  201 

Osbern,  his  life  of  St.  Dunstan,  166 

Osiander  on  virginity  of  the  Virgin,  69 
Osius  of  Cordova,  influence  of,  51 

Osnabruck,  Synods  of,  in  1625,  1628, 

556,  558 

Osorius  on  marriage  of  military  orders,  365 
Ossory,  Council  of,  in  1320,  299 

Oswald,  St.,  his  reforms,  169 

Oswalde’s  Law,  charter  of,  169 

Otfrid  of  Watten,  his  troubles,  260 

Othlonus,  his  temptations,  188 

Otho  I.  deposes  John  XII.,  144 

condemns  priestly  marriage,  150 

on  sons  of  priests,  229 

Otho  IV.,  his  league  with  John  of  Eng¬ 
land,  283 

Otho  of  Constance,  case  of,  229 

Otto  of  Ostia,  his  mission  to  Constance, 229 
Otto,  Cardinal,  constitutions  of,  288,  291 
Ottoboni,  constitutions  of,  291 

in  Scotland,  301 

Oxford,  Council  of,  in  1222,  288 

University  of,  on  Wicklifle,  379 

reform  proposed  by,  394 

See  of,  created,  ,  460 

DACCANARISTES,  613 

Pachomius,  rule  of,  101 

Paderborn,  Synod  of,  in  1548,  528 

proportion  of  clergy  in,  631 

Pagan  priests,  restrictions  on,  49-50 

Paleario,  Aonio,  on  Council  of  Trent,  520 
Palencia,  Council  of,  in  1129,  308 

in  1388,  311 

Palermo,  civil  marriage  valid  in,  606 

Palestine,  monachism  introduced  in,  97 
Panzini  on  condemnation  of  marriage,  47 
on  the  suppression  of  religious 
orders,  610 

on  clerical  morality,  632 

is  condemned  as  a  heretic,  602,  642 
Papacy,  degradation  of,  in  10th  cent.,  144 
in  11th  century,  176 

released  from  subjection,  192 

election  limited  to  Roman  clergy,  200 
distrust  inspired  by,  395 


INDEX. 


671 


Papacy,  restrictions  on  it  in  England, 

417,  517 

opposition  to  it  in  England,  444 

supremacy  abolished  in  England,  450 

restored  in  England,  482 

dependent  on  celibacy,  536 

Papal  Court,  its  immorality,  341,  345 
its  rapacity,  412,  416 

its  repugnance  for  C.  of  Trent,  519,522 
it  hesitates  as  to  celibacy  in  18th 
century,  584 

number  of  women  in,  1882,  628 

Papal  dispensations,  their  effect,  322,  397 
sale  of,  321,  322,  345,  398,  516,  517,  522 
admitted  by  Council  of  Trent,  535,  642 
for  married  priests,  407,  442 

Papal  infallibility  in  Vatican  Council,  608 
Papalists  known  as  Paterins,  237 

Paphnutius,  story  of,  56 

quoted  in  the  Reformation,  419 

Paraguay,  suppression  of  monasteries 
in,  609 

Parajika  rules,  in  Buddhism,  94 

Paregorius,  case  of,  84 

Paris,  Council  of,  in  615,  114 

in  1074,  256 

in  1212,  270,  332 

in  1323,  351 

in  1521  and  1528,  515 

Huguenot  Synod  of, in  1559,  498 

diocese  of,  absolution  in,  576 

Parlement  of,  regulates  monastic 
orders,  585 

Parker,  Archbishop,  his  marriage,  472 

his  rejoinder  to  Martin,  480 

his  promotion,  487 

he  obtains  priestly  marriage  from 
Elizabeth,  488 

his  visitation  of  1567,  491 

he  remonstrates  with  Elizabeth,  493 
he  evades  an  extradition  question,  513 
Parker,  Mrs.,  Elizabeth’s  insolence  to,  491 
Parkyns,  his  account  of  Abyssinian 
church,  93 

Parlement  of  Paris  regulates  monastic 
orders,  585 

Parliament  (English)  confirms  suprem¬ 
acy  of  Henry  VIII.,  450 

enacts  the  Six  Articles,  467 

modifies  the  Six  Articles,  471 

legalizes  priestly  marriage,  473 

commands  respect  for  it,  476 

reactionary  measures  under  Mary,  478 
repeals  the  laws  of  Henry  VIII.,  482 
on  confessional  manuals,  634 

Parliament  (Scotch)  of  1542,  503 

of  1560,  506 

Parliamentary  Abbots  in  1539,  45S 

Parma,  trouble  with  married  priests  in,  222 
Partidas,  Las  Siete,  marriage  forbid¬ 
den  in,  309 

Partner  in  guilt,  absolution  by,  575-8,  633 
Paschal  II.,  his  efforts  to  enforce  celi¬ 
bacy,  244 

enforces  celibacy  in  Denmark,  253 

in  Britanny,  259 

in  Flanders,  262 

in  Spain,  305 

on  ministration  of  married  priests,  275 


Paschal  II.  on  children  of  priests,  276 
Passau,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  230 
Council  of,  in  1284,  338 

troubles  of,  in  1431,  395 

Transaction  of,  443 

Paterins,  origin  of  the  name,  211 

their  heresy,  207 

their  doctrines,  367 

German  papalists  so  called,  237 

Patmore,  Thomas,  punishment  of,  462 
Patra,  the  Buddha’s  begging-dish,  35 
Patrician  heresv,  45 

Patrick,  St.,  his  classification  of  merit,  46 
founds  Irish  church,  159 

celibacy  in  his  church,  76 

Synod  of,  in  672,  160 

Patronage,  abuse  of,  France,  16th  cent.,  515 
Paul,  St.,  his  liberalizing  views,  26 

his  asceticism,  31 

he  enjoins  abstinence  from  women,  49 
on  ministration  of  women,  60 

his  order  of  widows,  96 

Paul  III.  prevents  reconciliation  with 

Lutherans,  441 

grants  dispensations  for  married 
priests,  442 

excommunicates  Henry  VIII.,  455 
convokes  Council  of  Trent,  520 

attempts  a  reform  of  the  church, 

516,  522 

obliged  to  abandon  it,  523 

Paul  IV.  pronounces  Savonarola  or¬ 
thodox,  386 

on  English  church-lands,  483 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  568 

puts  his  own  “  Consilium  ”  in  the 
Index,  523 

Paul  V.  on  abuse  of  confessional,  569 
Paul  of  Samosata,  case  of,  42 

Paul  the  Thebgean,  the  first  anchorite,  97 
Paula,  Francisco  de,  advocates  clerical 
marriage,  602 

Pauline  Christianity,  27 

Paupers,  monastic  vows  taken  only  by,  168 
Pavia,  Council  of,  in  1022,  178 

schismatic  Synod  of,  in  1076,  219,  220 
Payne,  Peter,  382 

Peasants’  War,  the,  435 

Peckham  of  Canterbury,  efforts  of,  291 
Pedro  de  Luna,  legate  to  Spain,  310 

Pekin,  number  of  Buddhist  monks  in,  95 
Pelagius  I.  endeavors  to  enforce  the 

canons,  123 

separates  wives  of  subdeacons,  124 
Pelagius  II.,  his  relaxation  of  rules,  122 
Penafiel,  Council  of,  in  1302,  310 

Penance  ol  married  priests  under  Mary,  481 
term  of,  for  infraction  of  canons, 

80,  157,  160 

for  unchastity,  169 

Penitential  of  Theodore  on  marriage,  48 
Penitentials,  coarseness  of,  566,  634 

Penitentiary,  taxes  of  the,  428 

Pepin  d’Heristel,  policy  of  his  house,  127 
Pepin  le-Bref  reforms  the  clergy,  132 
his  policy,  134 

Peres  de  la  Foi,  613 

Perigord,  Manichaeism  in,  in  1147,  207 

Persecution  of  Manichseans,  43 


672 


INDEX. 


Persecution  of  monks  by  Leo  the  Isaurian,90 


by  Valens,  99 

of  married  priests,  234,  423 

of  Catholics  in  Scotland,  512 

of  celibacy  under  the  Terror,  593 
Perth,  monasteries  destroyed  in,  508 

Peru,  corruption  of  church  of,  564-5 

Perushim,  25 

Peter,  St.,  his  view  of  Christ’s  mission,  26 
Peter  d' A  illy  on  corruption  of  priests,  350 
on  nunneries,  389 

he  condemns  Men  of  Intelligence,  385 
Peter  of  Antioch,  107 

Peter  Cantor  on  clerical  morals,  265 

on  false  accusations,  369 

Peter  of  Capua,  Cardinal,  enforces  celi¬ 
bacy  in  Poland,  251 

Peter,  Cardinal,  exhorted  to  suppress 
marriage,  203 

Peter  Comestor  deprecates  celibacy,  325 
Peter  Martyr,  tumult  in  Oxford  against,  474 
exhumation  of  his  wife,  484 

Peter  the  Venerable,  miracle  related 

by,  266 

he  refutes  the  Petrobrusians,  370 
Peter  de  Vinea  on  official  venality,  284 
Peter  Waldo,  his  career,  372 

Peterboro’,  the  first  bishop  of,  454 

See  of,  created,  460 

Petrarch,  his  opinion  of  papal  court,  342 
Petrobrusian  heresy,  370 

Petronio,  Marco,  on  clerical  morality,  631 
Peutwitz,  escape  of  nuns  from,  425 

Peyrinnis,  Laurent  de,  regulations  of,  562 
Pfaffenkind,  336 

Pharisees,  25 

Philibert  of  Sedan  on  clerical  marriage, 594 
Philip  of  Burgundy,  bishop  of  Utrecht,  429 
Philip  of  Savoy,  his  career,  290 

Philip  II.  prevents  the  granting  of 

clerical  marriage,  544 

his  policy  with  regard  to  Council 
of  Trent,  547,  553 

he  supports  St.  Charles  Borromeo,  551 
Philippe,  frere,  of  the  Ecoles  Chre- 
tiennes,  617,  620 

Philo  on  Therapeutaj,  26 

Phlebotomy  of  monks  prohibited,  138 
Phoebe  the  deacon,  60 

Photinus,  39 

his  heresy  as  to  the  Virgin,  6S 

Physicians,  prelates  not  to  be,  227 

Piacenza,  Bishop  of,  aids  to  elect 

Cadalus,  200 

Council  of,  in  1095,  221 

troubles  in,  222 

Pibo  of  Toul  inquires  as  to  sacerdotal 
marriage,  243 

Picardi,  385 

Pictish  church,  character  of,  160 

Piedmont,  priestly  marriage  in,  202 

monastic  orders  suppressed  in,  609 
number  of  clergy  in,  630 

Pier-Leone,  antipope,  his  character,  341 
Pierre  de  Bruys,  370 

Piers  Ploughman,  Vision  of  (see  Lang- 


| 


i 


i 

I 


i 


lunde). 

Piers  Ploughman,  Creed  of, 
on  Franciscans, 


352 
376  | 


Pietro  Igneo  excommunicates  married 
priests,  222 

Pietro,  schismatic  Bishop  of  Lucca,  222 

Pietro  de  Santa  Maria  enforces  celi¬ 
bacy  in  Bohemia,  246 

Pignan,  disorders  of  canons  of,  573 

Pilgrimage  of  Grace,  the,  455 

Pilgrims,  female,  dangers  to,  164 

deterred  from  visiting  Rome,  145 

Pinytus  of  Gnosus,  his  asceticism,  34 

Pisa,  Council  of,  failure  of  its  reforms,  413 
Pistoia,  trouble  with  married  priests  in,  222 
state  of  convents  of,  586 

Council  of,  in  1786,  587 

Pius  II.  on  the  origin  of  celibacy,  29 

he  favors  clerical  marriage,  406 

he  increases  the  annates  of  Mainz,  412 
Pius  III.  his  Bull  of  Reformation,  523 

Pius  IV.  on  the  origin  of  celibacy,  29 

he  admits  the  story  of  Papbnutius,  56 
he  reconvokes  the  Council  of  Trent, 521 
he  temporizes  with  demand  for 
clerical  marriage,  531 

he  swears  his  prelates  to  support 
vows  of  chastity,  533 

he  approves  his  legates’  tergiver¬ 
sation,  535 

he  concedes  the  cup  to  German 
laity,  541 

his  treatment  of  Orzechowski,  541 

he  inclines  to  grant  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  544 

but  at  length  refuses,  545 

he  orders  reception  of  C.  of  Trent,  547 
on  abuse  of  confessional,  568 

Pius  V.  admits  that  heresy  is  justified 

by  clerical  immorality,  430 

his  accession,  547 

his  reforms,  548-50 

he  suppresses  the  Umiliati,  552 

his  Bull  Contra  Sodomitas,  578 

is  stigmatized  as  a  Lutheran,  641 

Pius  VI.  on  abuse  of  confessional,  578 

Pius  VIII.  offers  to  permit  clerical 
marriage,  598 

Pius  IX.  on  dissolution  of  priestly 

marriage,  317 

he  resists  clerical  marriage,  601 

his  organization  of  the  Vatican 
Council,  603 

he  denounces  civil  marriage,  605 

growth  of  church  under  him,  608 

his  policy  on  monastic  vows,  610-11 
on  absolution  for  solicitation,  633 

Podiebrads,  the,  of  Bohemia,  384 

Poissy,  Colloquy  of,  on  virginity  of 

the  Virgin,  69 

its  result,  559 

Poitiers,  Council  of,  in  1000,  157 

in  1078,  256 

Huguenot  Synod  of,  in  1560,  559 

Bishop  of,  on  degradation  of  clergy,  638 
Poland,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  251 

its  alliance  with  Bohemia,  384 

its  complaints  of  papal  exactions,  397 
clerical  celibacy  questioned  in  15th 


century, 


409 


clerical  marriage  demanded  in  1556,529 
case  of  Orzechowski,  540 


INDEX. 


673 


Poland,  reception  of  Council  of  Trent,  547 
celibacy  discussed  in  18th  century,  584 
Pole,  Cardinal,  on  need  of  reformation,  522 
bis  legatine  powers,  478 

is  installed  as  legate,  482 

he  enforces  celibacy,  483 

he  orders  exhumation  of  Peter 
Martyr’s  wife,  484 

he  forbids  withdrawal  of  married 
priests,  485 

his  death,  486 

Political  importance  of  celibacy,  201 

influence  of  married  priests  in  1061,  200 
of  monachism,  106 

of  Belgian  clergy,  623 

teaching  of  monachism,  617-8 

Pollution  of  priests  among  the  Jews,  22 
Polygamy  of  Jews  and  Christians,  38 
of  priesthood,  172,  181,  247 

permitted  by  John  of  Leyden,  438 
Pomerania,  clerical  morals  in  15th  cent.,  401 
Pomeranius  on  Luther’s  marriage,  425 
Pontanus  on  Alexander  VI.,  345 

Pontigny,  Abbot  of,  punished,  404 

Poor  Men  of  Lyons,  373 

Poor-laws,  English,  commencement  of,  460 
Poor,  relief  of,  in  Scotland,  508 

Pope  (see  Papal). 

Pope,  Simon,  case  of,  479 

Poppo  of  Brixen  created  pope,  187 

Popular  desire  for  clerical  celibacy,  77,  234 
invoked  by  the  church,  227,  232 

Population,  influence  of  celibacy  on,  360 
Port  of  Spain,  Council  of,  in  1854, 

626,  633 

Portalis  promises  clerical  marriage 

under  the  Concordat,  596 

forbids  it,  597 

Portugal,  military  orders  in,  365 

abuse  of  confessional  in,  569 

Poverty  not  required  in  primitive  mo¬ 
nachism,  101,  112 

enforced  in  rule  of  Tetradius,  112 
in  rule  of  military  orders,  362 
of  Irish  church,  297 

of  Scottish  church,  508 

of  Waldenses,  374 

of  Franciscans,  376 

Poynette,  Bishop,  his  writings,  473,  480 
Praemunire  for  recognizing  papal  au¬ 
thority,  456 

Pragmatic  Sanction  of  1438,  396 

Prague,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  246 
Univ.  of,  condemns  Wickliffe,  382 
Councils  of,  in  1405-7,  383 

in  1565,  554,  556 

in  1860,  627,  633 

clerical  marriage  in  1578,  555 

Confession  of  Faith  of  1432,  3S4 

Pratimoksha,  the,  94 

Predestinarianism  of  Huss,  382 

Prelates  not  to  be  physicians,  227 

Prelibation,  droit  de,  354 

Premontre,  order  of,  264 

Priests,  children  of  (see  Children). 
divorces  of  (see  Divorces). 
marriage  of  (see  Marriage). 
immorality  of  (see  Morals). 
forbidden  to  bear  arms,  in  1049,  189 


Priests  compelled  to  keep  concubines, 

310,  388,  389 

privileges  of  their  concubines.  339 
reconciled,  treatment  of,  in  Eng¬ 
land,  484,  485 

their  position,  in  French  Revolu¬ 
tion,  590-2 

obliged  to  join  in  wolf-hunts,  303 
purgation  of,  in  Saxon  England,  174 
punishment  of,  for  unchastity,  131 
responsible  for  parish  property,  123 
their  position  in  modern  France,  637 
sinful,  their  ministrations, 

194,  368,  374,  379,  383 
their  influence,  346 

mutually  absolve  each  other,  428 
adulterous  wives  of,  to  be  put  away,  39 
their  wives  in  Italy,  in  8th  century, 127 
disorders  caused  by,  147,  175 
stigmatized  as  concubines,  196 
reduced  to  slavery,  242 

assumed  to  be  women  in  ser¬ 
vice,  489 

their  resistance  to  celibacv, 

202,  212,  222,  228,  231 
their  power  and  privileges,  355 

they  corrupt  the  laity.  265,  346, 

350,  429.  430,  518, *530,  533,  586,  629 
Priesthood,  hereditary  (see  Hereditary). 
becomes  indelible,  in  12th  century,  314 
is  incompatible  with  medicine,  227 
Priestly  caste,  danger  of  creating,  225 
Primitive  church,  asceticism  in,  31 

marriage  permitted  in,  28 

Privileges  accorded  to  priests’  concu¬ 
bines,  339 

Procedure,  ecclesiastical,  gives  prac¬ 
tical  immunity,  140 

Procopius,  St.,  his  marriage,  181 

Procopius  the  Hussite,  384 

Prodicus,  heresy  of,  33 

Promotion  dependent  on  celibacy,  75,  76 
Property, church, threatened  by  priestly 

marriage,  123 

dilapidation,  in  10th  cent.,  145, 147 
in  France  before  1789,  589 

Property,  monastic,  in  England,  459 

confiscated  in  Germany,  434,  437,  439 
in  France,  589 

in  Italy,  609 

Prosecution  of  clerical  offenders  in 
France,  636 

Prostitution  encouraged  by  celibacy,  629 
Prota,  Dr.,  on  civil  marriage,  606 

Protection  accorded  to  clerical  crimi¬ 
nals,  635 

Provence,  Waldenses  in,  375 

Prussia,  foundation  of  kingdom  of,  434 
acknowledges  clerical  marriage,  604 
proportion  of  clergy  in,  630 

Prussia,  West,  morals  of  clergy,  in 
15th  century,  402 

Public  school  system  of  France,  623 

Punishment,  mildness  of, for  solicitation, 571 
Purgation  of  Anglo-Saxon  priests,  174 
of  married  priests,  277 

Purgatory  maintained  by  Henry  VIII.,  454 
Puricelli  on  marriage  of  Eriberto  of 

Milan,  209 


45 


INDEX . 


674 


Puricelli  on  Ambrosian  tradition,  210 

Puritanism,  influence  of,  357 

Purity  required  of  pagan  priests,  49 


QUEBEC,  Councils  of,  in  1851  and 

1854,  626,  633 

Quedlinburg,  Diet  of,  in  10S5,  239 

Quimper,  diocese  of,  hereditary  de¬ 
scent  in,  259 

Quinisext  in  Trullo,  88 

Quito,  Council  of,  in  1869,  627 


f)ADULPHUS  Ardens  on  Manicha:ism,208 
^  on  clerical  morals,  265 

Rainbaldo  of  Fiesole,  180 

Ranald  and  Raymond,  case  of,  146 

Rapacity  of  papal  court,  412,  416 

Rasfeldt,  Bishop,  his  misadventures,  518 
Ratherius  of  Verona  on  hereditary 

transmission,  146 

his  priests  all  married,  148 

his  contest  with  his  clergy,  150 

Ratisbon,  Council  of,  in  13th  century,  248 
in  1512,  429 

Assembly  of,  in  1524,  423 

Diet  of,  in  1532,  439 

in  1541,  440 

Bishop  John  of,  429 

Ratramnus  of  Corvey  on  Nicene  canons,  55 
Rauscher,  Cardinal,  denounces  civil 
marriage,  605 

Ravenna,  Council  of,  in  967,  condemns 

priestly  marriage,  150 

in  997,  '  157 

in  1568,  553 

in  1855,  627 

Raymond  of  Gallicia,  307 

Raymond  du  Puy  founds  Knights  of 
St.  John,  362 

Recared  I.  enforces  celibacy,  121 

Reconciliation  of  Imperialist  clergy, 

in  1106,  245 

of  Anglican  clergy,  484,  485 

of  England  to  Rome,  482 

Reformation,  the,  in  Germany,  410-43 

caused  by  clerical  corruption,  430,  514, 

516,  518,  527,  529,  548,  556  sqq. 

in  England,  444—97 

in  France,  498-500 

in  Scotland,  501-13 

Reforms  proposed  at  Constance,  391 

undertaken  at  Bale,  395 

attempted  at  Trent,  538 

R6fractairen  priests,  590 

Regency,  Council  of,  in  1523,  424 

Reggio,  trouble  with  married  priests  in,  222 
Reginald  of  Canterbury,  his  life  of  St. 

Malchus,  275 

Regino  of  Pruhm  on  residence  of  fe¬ 
male  relatives,  138 

on  legalized  concubinage,  196 

Regnier  the  Albigensian,  367 

Relatives,  residence  of  (see  Residence). 
Relaxation  for  abuse  of  confessional,  569 
Relics,  false,  sold  by  monks,  102 

ridiculed  by  Erasmus,  414 

impostures  of,  in  England,  458 


Renan,  Ernest,  on  morality  of  clergy,  625 
Renaud  of  Rhcims  protects  Flemish 
priests,  261 

Residence  of  relatives  forbidden, 

138,  331,  555,  560 
its  danger,  62S 

of  women,  canon  of  Nicaea  on,  53 
Emperor  Ilonorius  on,  55 

prohibition  enforced,  84 

in  Greek  church,  91 

by  Gregory  I.,  124 

forbidden,  in  744,  132 

legislation  on,  136 

tolerated  in  Spain,  303,  307,  309 
regulated  in  1536,  518 

over  forty  years  old  permitted, 525 
permitted  by  Council  of  Trent, 538 
regulations  for,  554,  560,  561 

in  Spanish  colonies,  563 

modern  rules  for,  626,  628 

Resistance  of  clergy  to  celibacy, 

202,  212,  222,  228,  231 
Responsibility  of  the  church,  355 

thrown  upon  God,  536,  624 

Restoration,  monachism  under  the,  613 

Restrictions  on  monachism  by  Valens,  99 

by  Majorian,  105 

in  the  East,  107 

in  modern  times,  608,  613,  621 
on  clerical  marriage  by  Elizabeth,  489 
Results  of  celibacy,  330 

Reuchlin  and  the  theologians,  413 

Revolution,  French,  its  treatment  of 

the  church,  588-94 

tolerates  Sisters  of  Charity,  613 
of  1830,  its  influence  on  monachism, 614 
Rhea,  worship  of,  50 

Rheims,  Council  of,  in  874,  141 

in  1049,  189 

in  1119,  267 

in  1130,  314,  315 

in  1148,  315 

in  1408,  350 

in  1564,  559 

in  1583,  560 

in  1849,  .  626 

Rhodes,  Knights  of,  362,  366,  458 

Ribadeneira,  his  life  of  Loyola,  517 

Ricci,  Scipione  dei,  5S7 

Richard  of  Albano  appealed  to,  261 

Richard  of  Dover  on  suppression  of 

monasteries,  455, 456 

on  starving  out  of  monasteries,  457 
on  false  relics,  458 

intercedes  for  ejected  monks,  460 
Richard  the  Fearless  reforms  Fecamp,  155 
Richard  Fitz-Neal,  his  advancement,  281 
Richard  of  Marseilles,  papal  legate  to 
Spain,  304 

Richmond,  Thos.,  case  of,  382 

Richsticb  Landrecht,  children  of  clerks 
in,  336 

Riculfus  of  Soissons  on  incest,  13S 

Ridley,  Bishop,  prepares  the  Forty-two 
Articles,  475 

Rigobcrt,  St.,  of  Rheims,  129 

Ritualists.  Anglican,  on  marriage,  476 

Rivera  on  toleration  of  adultery,  566 

Robber  Synod  at  Ephesus,  107 


INDEX. 


675 


Robert  d’Arbrissel,  his  reforms,  258,  265  f 
Robert  of  Artois,  case  of,  261 

Robert,  Cardinal,  his  constitutions,  332 
Robert  the  Frisian  enforces  celibacy,  260 
Robert  the  Good  (Naples)  remits  fines 
on  concubinage,  339 

Robert  the  Hierosolymitan  of  Flanders,  261 
Robert  the  Pious,  his  neglect  of  celibacy, 179 
he  burns  heretics,  207 


Robert  of  Rouen,  his  character,  155 

Robles,  his  life  of  Ximenes,  403 

Roderic  of  Spain  repeals  Witiza’s  laws, 122 
Rodolf  of  Bourges  on  residence  of  fe¬ 
male  relatives,  138 

Rodolf  of  Swabia,  his  coronation  at 
Mainz,  236 

Rodolphus  Glaber  on  simony,  185 

Rodriguez  on  seduction  in  confessional, 570 
Roman  clergy,  papal  election  by,  200 

Roman  Law,  concubinage  under,  196 

Roman  Republic,  abrogation  of  mo¬ 
nastic  vows  in  1849,  609 

Rome,  Council  of,  in  384,  64,  103  j 

in  721  and  722,  127 

in  745,  132  | 

in  826,  196 

in  1051,  189 

in  1052,  196 

in  1057,  192 

in  1059,  194 

in  1063,  196,  202 

in  1066,  216 

in  1074,  227 

in  1075,  231 

in  1076,  229,  232 

in  1079,  56 

in  1725,  626 


pseudo-council  under  Silvester,  55,  122 
avarice  of,  397,  412 

brothels  kept  by  prelates  in,  429 

England  reconciled  to,  482 

Germany  oppressed  by,  412 

heretics  forbidden  in,  70 

its  influence  extended  to  Ireland,  296 
to  Spain,  303 

jurisdiction  of,  its  limits,  84 

its  demoralizing  effect, 139, 322,  345  i 
surrendered  by  Alexander  IV.,  334  ! 
morals  of  Pagan,  32 

of  Christian,  81,  181,  341,  549,  587 
modern  political  opinions  of,  618 
number  of  clergy  in,  630 

pilgrims  deterred  from  visiting,  145 
reforms  of  Pius  V.,  550 

revision  of  modern  councils  at,  628 
rule  respecting  the  subd.iaconate,  124 
supremacy  over  Milan  asserted,  213 
toleration  of  attacks,  15th  cent.,  387,417  1 
of  sacrilege  and  lust,  431 

of  Greek  discipline,  640 

Romuald  the  priest,  case  of,  127 

Romuald,  St.,  186 

Rosceline  on  priests’  children,  276 

Rota,  priest  of,  his  fate,  236 

Rothius  on  the  Nicolites,  34 

Rouen,  Archbishops  of,  in  10th  cent.,  155 
Council  of,  in  1072,  256 

in  1148,  372 

in  1189,  322 


Rouen,  Council  of,  in  1581,  500 

in  1850,  626,  633 

Roussillon,  Edict  of,  in  1564,  499 

Rules  of  monachism,  early,  101 

of  St.  Benedict,  112 

of  St.  Cassianus,  101,  110 

of  St.  Chrodegang,  134 

of  St.  Columba,  160 

of  St.  Oriesis,  101 

of  St.  Pachomius,  101 

of  St.  Tetradius,  112 

Rupert  of  Duits  on  priestly  marriage,  247 
Rureinonde,  Synod  of,  in  1570,  562 

Russel,  Lord,  suppresses  insurrection 
in  Devon,  475 

Russian  church,  customs  of,  91 

Rusticus  of  Narbonne,  76 

CABATATI,  373 

^  Saccofori,  44 

Sacerdotalism,  necessity  of  celibacy  to,  225 
popular  antagonism  to,  368 

Sachsenspiegel,  children  of  clerks  in,  336 

Sacrament  of  marriage  inferior  to  or¬ 
dination,  313,  315,  642 

of  sinful  priests,  194,  368,  374,  379,  383 
Sacrilege  and  lust,  tolerance  for,  431 

Sadducees,  conservatism  of,  24 

Sadoleto,  Card.,  on  need  of  reformation, 522 
Saignet,  his  advocacy  of  clerical  mar¬ 
riage,  353,  406 

St.  Albans,  Abbey  of,  its  disorders,  399 

St.  Caterina  di  Pistoia,  Abbess  of,  586 

St.  Cornelius,  church  of,  charter  to,  270 

St.  Denis,  Council  of,  in  995,  154 

Abbey  of,  its  disorders,  264 

St.  Esprit,  Society  of,  613 

St.  Fara,  monastery  of,  its  disorders,  264 
St.  Gildas  de  Ruys,  Abbey  of,  264 

St.  Iago  of  Compostella,  church  of,  306 

St.  James  of  the  Sword,  Order  of,  363 

St.  John,  Knights  of,  362,  366,  458 

St.  Louis,  Council  of,  in  1858,  627 

St.  Marco,  preservation  of,  in  1866,  609 

St.  Martin  of  Tours,  Abbey  of,  404 

St.  Mary  of  Argenteuil,  Convent  of,  264 
St.  Michael,  Order  of,  365 

St.  Omer,  Synod  of,  in  1099,  261 

in  1583,  560 

in  1640,  562 

St.  Peter  of  Sens,  Abbey  of,  153 

St.  Riquier,  Abbey  of,  its  strictness,  404 
St.  Sabina,  Cardinal  of,  enforces  celi¬ 
bacy  in  Sweden,  253 

St.  Stephen,  church  of,  in  Aretino,  147 

St.  Ursmar,  married  canon3  of,  270 

St.  Vitus,  monks  of,  reformed  by 

Gregory  I.,  114 

Saintes,  monastic  school  at,  case  of,  619 

Saints  in  Benedictine  Order,  113 

Salamanca,  Council  of,  in  1335,  310 

Salerno,  Council  of,  in  1596,  553 

Salona,  Archbishop  of,  degraded,  188 

Salvianus  on  condition  of  morals,  81 

Salzburg,  disorders  in  12th  century,  247 

Archbishop  of,  demands  suppres¬ 
sion  of  clerical  marriage,  530 

asks  for  clerical  marriage,  539 


676 


INDEX. 


Salzburg,  impossibility  of  reform,  16th  Scotland,  its  church,  founded  by  Co¬ 


century, 

548,  554 

lumba, 

160 

XXXth  Council  of, 

350 

claim  of  York  on, 

161 

in  1537, 

518 

celibacy  in  early  church  of, 

161 

in  1549, 

527 

position  of  concubines  in, 

197 

in  1562, 

531  , 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in, 

299 

Sampson,  Thos.,  on 

position  of 

mar- 

Council  of,  in  1225, 

301 

ried  clergy, 

496 

the  Reformation  in, 

501-13 

Samson,  Nazirate  of. 

22 

Scribes,  their  influence, 

24 

Samuel,  Nazirate  of, 

22  : 

Scythianus,  precursor  of  Manes, 

44 

Sanadon  of  O16ron  on 

clerical  marriage, 594 

Sebastian  of  Portugal  on  papal 

dis- 

Sanders  on  Cranmer, 

470,  474 

pensations, 

517 

on  delay  in  authorizing  priestly 


marriage,  488 

on  Elizabethan  clergy,  494 

Sandys,  Bishop,  on  delay  of  priestly 

marriage,  488 

his  quarrel  with  Sir  J.  Bourne,  496 

Sanghadisesa  rules,  in  Buddhism,  95 

Sangharamas,  Buddhist,  94 

Sangreal,  the,  35 

Sankhya  school,  23 

Sannazaro  on  InnocentVIII.  and  Alex¬ 
ander  VI.,  345 

Sannyasis,  class  of,  23 

Sanseverino,  Council  of,  in  1597,  553 

Santafe,  Council  of,  in  1556,  563 

Saoshyans,  the  Zend  Messiah,  35 

Sarabaitae,  107,  109,  115 

Saragossa,  Council  of,  in  381,  98,  100 

in  592,  80 

Sarah,  Abbess,  her  fortitude,  188 

Sardinia,  civil  marriage  enacted,  605 

suppression  of  monasteries,  609 

Sarpi,  Fra  Paolo,  on  Tridentine  points 
of  faith,  641 

Satan,  his  estimate  of  chastity,  348 

his  gratitude  to  the  church,  351 

venerated  by  Begghards,  377 

Saturnilus,  heresy  of,  33 

Saurin  vs.  Starr  and  Kennedy,  611 

Savonarola,  386 

on  priestly  morals,  399 

on  morals  of  nunneries,  403 

on  abuse  of  confessional,  567 

Savoy,  priestly  marriage  in,  203 

in  the  Revolution,  592 

Saxon  bishops  ejected  by  Normans,  271 

married  priests  in  Ireland,  298 

(See,  also,  Auyio-Saxon.) 

Saxony,  commencement  of  priestly 
marriage  in,  419 

Sbinco  of  Prague  his  reforms,  383 

Scandal  more  dreaded  than  sin,  518,  565, 

567,  568,  571,  577,  579,  619,  628,  634-5 
Scandals  of  agapetae,  41 

Scandinavia,  morals  ot  bishops,  389 

Scania,  demand  tor  priestly  marriage  in, 252 
Scaren,  plunder  ot  bishopric  of,  279 

Schening,  Council  of,  in  1548,  253 

Schism  of  1061,  influence  ol  celibacy  on, 200 
Schmalkalden,  League  ot,  its  founding,  438 

its  overthrow,  441 

its  negotiations  with  Henry  VIII.,  466 

Schmidt,  Conrad,  his  heresy,  385 

Schmidt,  Johann,  Bishop  ol  Vienna,  439 

School  system,  public,  in  France,  623 

Schools  ot  monastic  orders  in  France, 


I 

i 


i 


617-21 


Second  marriages  (see  Marriage). 

Secular  power  invoked  to  regulate  mo- 

nachism,  100 

protects  married  priests,  151,  152 

its  assistance  invoked, 

178,  203,  293,  294,  309,  559,  560 
celibacy  subject  to,  583 

Secularization  of  church  property  in 

Germany,  427,  435,  437 

in  England,  454-60 

in  France,  589 

in  Italy,  609 

of  education  in  France,  623 

Seduction  of  nuns  a  capital  offence,  136 
Segenfrid  of  Le  Mans,  evil  courses  of,  152 
Sendomir,  Agreement  of,  385 

Sens,  Council  of,  in  1850,  626 

Seraphin  of  Gran  on  marriage,  249 

Sergius  III.,  his  immorality,  144 

Serfs,  ordination  of,  155 

Servant,  priest’s  wife  assumed  to  be  a,  489 
Servitude  of  sons  of  priests,  155 

of  their  wives,  189,  242,  309 

Severus  repeals  Majorian’s  laws,  106 

Seville,  Council  of,  in  590,  80 

in  1512,  400 

dress  of  concubines  regulated,  517 
abuse  of  confessional  in,  569 

Sextus  Philosophus  on  mutilation,  40 
Shaving,  resistance  of  clergy  to,  553 

Shaxton,  Bishop,  opposes  the  Six  Ar¬ 
ticles,  469 

Sheep-farming,  discontent  caused  by,  474 
Shrewsbury,  hereditary  benefices  in,  272 
Sicily,  monachism  reformed  by  Greg¬ 
ory  I.,  114 

celibacy  of  subdeacons,  124 

children  of  ecclesiastics  in,  335 

civil  marriage  valid,  606 

episcopal  convention  of,  in  1850,  626 

Sickingen,  Franz  von,  421 

Siedeler,  Jacob,  fate  of,  419 

Siegtrid  of  Mainz,  his  troubles  with 
celibacy,  231 

Siete  Partidas  on  origin  of  celibacy,  29 
celibacy  enjoined  in,  309 

Sigismund  (Emp.)  advocates  clerical 
marriage,  406 

Silesia,  heresy  of  John  of  Pima,  378 

marriage  in  post-Tridentine  church, 555 
clerical  marriage  asked  for  in  1831,  601 
Silvester  I.  on  abuse  of  confession,  567 
forged  canons  of,  122,  137 

Silvester  II.  on  celibacy,  157 

Silvester  III.,  election  of,  183 

Simon,  Jules,  opposes  secularized  edu¬ 
cation,  623 


INDEX . 


677 


Simoniacal  priests,  sacraments  of,  195 
Simony,  in  11th  century,  185,  214 

its  repression  by  Leo  IX.,  189 

by  Gregory  VII.,  229 

papal,  398 

Simple  vows  prevent  marriage,  321 

Simplicius,  St.,  of  Autun,  case  of,  78 

Sin  (see  Scandal). 

its  influence  on  sacraments,  194 

Wicklifle’s  definition  of,  379 

Siricius  makes  no  reference  to  Nicene 

canon,  55 

commands  celibacy,  65,  72 

on  heresy  of  Bonosus,  68 

of  Jovinian,  69 

on  disregard  of  vows,  100 

on  monastic  unchastity,  103 

Sister,  residence  of  (see  Residence). 

Sisters  of  Charity,  612-3 

Sithieu,  Abbey  of,  its  strictness,  404 

Sitten,  Synod  of,  in  1500,  402 

Six  Articles  (see  Articles). 

Sixtus  III.  on  marriage,  47 

his  trial,  82 

Sixtus  IV.,  his  vices,  344 

his  sale  of  preferments,  398 

Sixtus  V.  on  children  of  cardinals,  550 

Skopsis,  sect  of,  41 

Slave  children  of  priests  emancipated,  563 
Slavery  for  wives  of  priests,  189,  242,  389 
for  their  sons,  155 

Slaves,  female,  their  union  with  priests, 249 
Slavonic  church,  its  connection  with 

the  Greek,  244 

adherence  to  priestly  marriage,  251 

Sleidan  on  organized  concubinage,  353 

Sleswick,  clerical  morals  in  15th  cent.,  402 
Smaragdus  on  monastic  impostors,  115 

Smith,  Dr.  Richard,  on  clerical  matri¬ 
mony,  474 

Smith,  Sir  Thomas,  on  celibacy,  497 

Socrates  on  the  story  of  Paphnutius,  56 
on  observance  of  celibacy,  86 

Soissons,  Synod  of,  in  744,  132 

Manichaeism  in  1114,  207 

Solicitation  (see  Confessional). 

Somerset  the  Protector  encourages  the 
reformers,  472 

Sons  of  priests  (see  Children). 

Sorbonne,  the,  condemns  Hildebran- 

dine  doctrine,  382 

condemns  Jean  Lallier,  408 

refuses  conference  with  Melanch 
thon,  440 

Sormitz,  escape  of  nuns  from,  425 

Sousa,  Ant.  de,  on  solicitation,  571 

Sozomen  relates  the  story  of  Paphnutius,  56 
Spain,  celibacy  first  enforced  in,  50,  66 

disregarded  in  375,  65 

legislation  in  400,  75 

continued  efforts  required,  80 

morals  of,  in  4th  century,  81 

monastioism  in  7th  century,  115 

celibacy  in  Arian  church,  120 

reforms  attempted  by  Catholicism,  121 
church  property  guarded,  123 

concubines,  position  of,  196,  197 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  302 

priestly  marriage  universal,  303 


I 


1 

I 

i 


! 


! 


I 


Spain,  delay  in  abrogating  priestly 

marriage,  305 

immorality  of  clergy,  311 

military  orders,  363 

demoralization  in  15th  century,  400 
Ximenes  and  the  Franciscans,  402 
morals  in  16th  century,  517 

priestly  marriage  demanded,  556 
concubinage  ot  ecclesiastics,  557 
the  Colonial  church,  563 

abuse  of  confessional,  568-74 

case  of  Father  Mena,  579 

census  of  the  church  in  1764,  588 

civil  marriage  agitated,  605 

Spalatin,  his  record  of  priestly  mar¬ 
riages,  422 

Spalatro,  Council  of,  in  925,  149 

in  1185,  250 

Spaldwick,  Vicar  of,  scandal  caused  by ,485 
Spandel,  Chris.,  on  corruption  of  clergy,  556 
Spanish  church,  its  independence  of 

Rome,  302 

colonies,  corruption  of  church  in,  563 
Spelman  on  Anglo-Saxon  monachism,  173 
Spifame,  Bishop  of  Nevers,  499 

Spiti,  number  of  monks  in,  95 

Spotswood  claims  extradition  of 
Baron’s  wife,  513 

Sraddha,  23 

Standards  of  morality,  269,  347,  349,  627 
State,  permission  of  the,  required  by 

monastic  orders  in  1760,  585 

its  subjection  to  the  church,  618,  639 
Statistics  of  abuse  of  confessional,  573,  636 


of  Buddhist  monachism, 
of  clergy  in  France, 
in  Germany, 
in  Italy, 
in  Naples, 

of  Company  of  Jesus, 
of  monachism  in  Austria, 
in  Belgium, 
in  France, 


95 

593,  637 
630-1 

630 

631 
615 
615 
615 

614,  615,  617 


Stephen  IX.  forces  episcopate  on  Da- 

miani,  186 

his  efforts  at  reform,  192 

intervenes  in  Milanese  troubles,  212 
Stephen,  King  (England),  his  siege  of 
Devizes,  281 

Stephen  of  Halberstadt  on  the  Im¬ 
perialists,  239 

Sterckx,  Archbishop,  his  “  Petronilla,”  629 

Stipends  of  married  priests  guaranteed, 594 
Stokesley  of  London  on  suppression  of 

monasteries,  454 

on  priestly  marriage,  462 

Storck  and  the  Anabaptists,  438 

Strassburg,  popular  protection  of  mar¬ 
ried  priests,  423 

Synod  of,  in  1549,  528 

in  1687,  562 

Strype,  his  description  of  English 
clergy,  476 

Sturmius,  Balt.,  his  marriage,  421 

Subdeacons  allowed  to  marry,  39 

their  marriage  forbidden  in  530,  86 

separated  from  their  wives,  124 

marriage  of,  forbidden  in  952,  149 


subjected  to  the  canon, 


196,  204 


678 


INDEX . 


Subdeacons,  when  married,  removed 

from  benefice,  242 

their  celibacy  in  Dalmatia,  250 

their  marriage  in  Hungary,  250 

and  in  Austria,  1267,  251 

their  celibacy  in  Denmark,  253 

rules  in  England,  274 

exceptions  in  favor  of  immorality,  320 

their  marriage  permitted,  324 

Suchuen,  abuse  of  confessional  in,  578 

Suczinsky,  Dean,  his  marriage,  604 

Suffolk,  Duke  of,  suppresses  insurrec¬ 
tion,  _  455 

Suger  of  St.  Denis  imprisons  Eon  de 
1’Etoile,  372 

Suidger  of  Bamberg  created  pope,  184 

Sulpicius  Severus,  St.,  favors  Vigilantius,71 
Sulpitius  of  Bourges,  118 

Suppression  of  monasteries  in  Ger¬ 
many,  427,  435 

in  England,  448,  454 

means  adopted  for,  457 

financial  results  of,  460 

by  Joseph  II.,  584 

in  France,  589 

in  recent  times,  608-9 

Suzor  of  Tours  on  clerical  marriage,  594 

Swabia,  enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  233 

Sweden,  position  of  concubines  in,  197 

enforcement  of  celibacy  in,  252 

Englishmen  as  bishops,  278 

morals  of  bishops,  389 

Swithin,  St.,  marriage  of,  165 

Switzerland,  celibacy  at  Constance,  229 

clerical  morals  of,  13th  century,  340 

organized  concubinage  in,  353 

Zwingli’s  movement,  421 

demoralization  in  16th  century,  429 

clerical  marriage  in  modern  times,  601 

Syllabus  of  1864  on  dissolution  of  mar¬ 
riage,  317 

its  political  teachings,  618 

argued  away  by  Dupanloup,  642 

Symmachus  prohibits  marriage  of  nuns,  111 

on  confessors  and  penitents,  567 

Synesius,  case  of,  85 


TAAS,  Hussite  victory  of,  3S2 

Taborites,  the,  383 

Tacitus  on  morality  of  Germans,  118 

Taillard  on  origin  of  celibacy,  30 

Talasius  of  Angers  on  celibacy,  79 

Talesperianus  of  Lucca,  charter  of,  127 

Talleyrand  secularizescburch  property,  589 
Talon,  Omer,  on  marriage  of  apostates,  501 
Tamar  and  Judah,  21 

Tanner,  Dr.,  on  number  of  ejected 
priests,  480 

Tapas,  character  of,  24 

Tarento,  Archb.  of,  advocates  marriage,  631 
Tarragona,  Council  of,  in  516,  80 

in  1591,  562 

in  1717,  626 

Tatianus,  heresy  of,  33 

Taxes  of  the  Penitentiary,  428,  517 

Teachers,  character  of  monastic,  618 

Teaching,  political,  of  monachism,  61S 

Tedaldo,  Archbishop  of  Milan,  219 


Templai-s,  military  order  of,  362 

Temporal  possessions  (see  Secularization). 
Temporalities  of  church  endangered  by 

marriage,  63,  407 

of  married  clerks,  seizure  of,  258 
Tenure  of  chastity,  benefices  held  by,  311 
Terbinthus,  teacher  of  Manes,  44 

Terouane,  marriage  of  priests  in,  262 
Terror,  the,  position  of  priests  under,  590 
persecution  of  celibacy,  593 

Sisters  of  Charity  tolerated,  613 

Tertullian  denounces  second  marriages,  36 
on  virginity  of  the  Virgin,  68 

on  merits  of  widows  and  virgins,  96 
on  accusations  against  Christians,  208 
Test,  clerical  marriage  as  a,  592 

Tetradius,  St.,  Rule  of,  112 

Tetzel,  sale  of  indulgences  by,  413 

Teutonic  Knights,  order  of,  366 

marriage  of,  434 

tribes,  virtue  of,  82 

Thane-right,  173 

Theatricals  in  nunneries,  527 

Theocracy  proposed  by  Gregory  VII.,  223 
Theodatus  of  Corvey,  success  of,  227 

Theodore  of  Canterbury,  his  peniten¬ 
tial,  48,  162 

on  sacrament  of  sinful  priests,  195 
Theodore  Studita  on  monastic  morals,  109 
Theodoric  of  Verdun,  his  remonstrances, 233 
Theodoric  a  Niem  on  John  XXII.,  344 
on  Swedish  bishops,  389 

Theodosius  the  Great  suppresses  po¬ 
lygamy,  38 

prohibits  shaving  of  nuns,  104 

restricts  monachism,  108 

Theodosius  of  Jerusalem,  107 

Theodulf  of  Orleans  on  incest,  138 

Theodwin  and  Albert  at  Council  of 
Avranches,  319 

Theophilus  of  Alexandria,  rigor  of,  349 
Tbeophylact  on  “unius  uxoris  vir,”  38 
Therapeutse,  26 

Thessalonica,  celibacy  enforced  in,  86 
Thibautof  Oxford  on  priests’  children,  276 
Thomas  Aquinas  (see  Aquinas). 

Thomas  a  Becket  on  simony,  284 

Thomas  of  Cantinpre  on  corrupting  in¬ 
fluence  of  priesthood,  350 

Thomas  of  Walden  on  Wickliffe,  379 

Thomas,  Wm.,  on  English  monasteries,  452 
de  Thou,  on  refusal  to  grant  clerical 
marriage,  544 

Thuringia,  the  Brethren  of  the  Cross,  385 
Thurles,  Council  of,  in  1850,  626,  633 

Tibet  number  of  monks  in,  95 

Tibullus  on  purity  required  for  sacrifice,  49 
Timotheists,  their  heresy,  376 

Tithes,  seizure  of,  by  the  laity,  258 

Toledo,  Council  of,  in  398,  196,  566 

in  400,  75,  105 

in  531,  80 

in  589,  80,  120 

in  597  and  633,  80 

in  653,  80,  121 

in  655,  121 

in  675,  80 

in  1565  and  1582,  562,  574 

discipline  of,  in  Spanish  church,  302 


INDEX. 


679 


Toleration  of  attacks  by  Rome,  386,  415,  417 
Toleration,  condemned  by  the  church,  618 


Tonsure,  differences  as  to,  161,  163 

Toribio,  St.,  of  Peru,  564 

Torne  of  Bourges,  his  marriage,  591 

Tortosa,  Council  of,  in  1429,  311,  364 

Torture  not  allowed  in  trials  for  solici¬ 
tation,  571 

Toul,  hereditary  transmission  in,  266 

relaxation  of  discipline  in,  326 

Toulouse,  Council  of,  in  1056,  255,  304 

in  1119,  208,  267 

in  1850,  626,  633 

spread  of  heresy  in,  207,  370 

Tournay,  Synod  of,  in  1520,  575 

in  1574,  560 

Tournon,  Cardinal,  his  efforts  at  reform,  515 

Tours,  Council  of,  in  460,  80 

in  567,  80,  120 

in  925,  146 

in  1060,  198,  255 

in  1096,  263 

in  1163,  319 

in  1583,  560 

in  1849,  626 

Trani,  married  bishop  deposed,  197 

civil  marriage  valid  in,  606 

Transaction  of  Cadam,  439 

of  Passau,  443 

Transsubstantiation,  Wickliffe’s  error 

on,  378 

Treason,  English  monks  punished  for, 

451,  457 

Treglia,  Andrea,  case  of,  606 

Treguier,  residence  of  relatives  for- 
bidden,  332 

Trent,  Council  of,  514-45 

expectations  with  regard  to  it,  441,  443 

it  authorizes  dispensations  for  mar¬ 
ried  priests,  442 

its  canons  on  matrimony,  534-6 

on  adultery,  566 

its  non-reception  in  France,  546 

its  reception  elsewhere,  547 

failure  of  its  reforms,  548  sqq. 

enforcement  of  its  canons,  552,  553,  554 
it  avoids  reference  to  abuse  of  con¬ 
fessional,  568 

on  power  of  absolution,  575 

on  age  of  ordination,  624 

on  gift  of  chastity,  624 

on  residence  of  women,  626,  628 

on  celibacy  as  matter  of  faith,  640 


Treves,  persecution  of  married  clergy  in, 234 
morals  of  clergy,  in  12th  century,  248 
Archbp.,  asks  for  clerical  marriage,  539 
effort  for  clerical  marriage,  in  1833,  601 


proportion  of  clergy  in,  631 

Synod  of,  in  1548,  525 

in  1549,  526 

in  1678,  562 

Trialogus,  Wickliffe's,  380 

Tribunal,  mixed,  for  married  priests,  257 

Tribur,  assembly  of,  in  1076,  237 

Trinidad  and  Mercede,  Orders  of,  311 

Trithemius  on  Benedictine  saints,  113 

on  monastic  immorality,  404 

Tropea,  sister  of  Pier-Leone,  342 

Trosley,  Council  of,  in  909,  141 


Troyes,  Synod  of,  in  1107,  245 

in  1128,  362 

Tsadukim,  hereditary  priesthood  of,  22 

their  conservatism,  24 

Tuam,  Council  of,  in  1854,  633 

Tudeschi,  Nich.,  advocates  clerical 
marriage,  406 

Turin,  Council  of,  in  401,  75 

Turner,  John,  penance  of,  481 

Turquoing,  suppression  of  unauthor¬ 
ized  orders ‘in,  622 

Tuscany,  priestly  marriage  defended  in,  199 
clerical  morals  in  18th  century,  586 

Tyndale  advocates  priestly  marriage,  462 


LRIC,  St.,  of  Augsburg  on  priestly 
marriage,  149 

Ulric  of  Bohemia  founds  Abbey  of 
Zagow,  181 

Ulric  of  Tegernsee  on  bigamy,  181 

Umbilicani,  24 

Umiliati,  their  struggle  with  St.  Charles 
Borromeo,  551 

Unchastity,  forgiveness  for,  in  False 

Decretals,  136 

punished  as  homicide,  169 

United  States,  priestly  marriage  in,  607 

morality  of  clergy  in,  625 

recent  Councils  of,  626-7,  633 

University  Fellows,  celibacy  of,  492 

Urban  II.  on  sacraments  of  sinful 

priests,  195 

creates  Conrad  King  of  Lombardy, 220 
reconciles  the  Milanese  clergy,  220 

holds  Council  of  Piacenza,  221 

enforcement  of  celibacy  attributed 
to,  225 

not  recognized  in  Germany,  241 

his  enforcement  of  celibacy,  242 

protects  Flemish  priests,  261 

declares  marriage  incompatible 
with  Orders,  313 

Urban  III.  enforces  celibacy  in  Dal¬ 
matia,  250 

Urban  VIII.  on  abuse  of  confessional,  573 
Urbicus  of  Clermont,  case  of,  73 

Urbino,  Council  of,  in  1569,  553 

in  1859,  627 

Urraca,  Queen,  306 

Useria,  supposed  wife  of  Eriberto  of 
Milan,  209 

Utopia,  Sir  Thomas  More's,  446 

Utraquists,  the,  384 

Utrecht,  condition  of  nunneries,  14th 

century,  340 

reception  of  Council  of  Trent  in,  553 
Synods  of,  in  1561  and  1565,  554 

in  1865,  627,  633 


VAGABOND  monks,  102,  109,  115 

'  Vagabondage,  Tudor  laws  on,  455, 460 
Valence,  Council  of,  in  374,  100,  103 

Valencia,  Council  of,  in  1255,  309 

in  1565,  562 

Valens,  his  restrictions  on  monachism,  99 
Valentinian  on  clerical  morals,  63 

Valentinus,  heresy  of,  33 


680 


INDEX . 


Valesians,  sect  of,  40 

Valladolid,  Counoil  of,  in  1322,  310,  364 

Vallombrosa,  monks  of,  183 

Vanaprasthas,  class  of,  23 

Varabran  I.  persecutes  Manichmism,  43 
Vatican,  Council  of,  in  1870,  603 

its  decree  of  infallibility,  608 
number  of  women  in,  1882,  628 

Vaudois,  the,  373 

Vedas,  doctrine  of  Tapas  in,  24 

Vega,  Fray  Juan  de  la,  572 

Veil,  taking  tbe,  a  marriage  with  Christ,  104 
Velda,  Dr.,  case  of,  570 

Venality  of  officials,  253,  278,  284,  293,  312, 
321,  327,  332,  337,  339,  345,  396,  401, 

433,  517,  522 

Venantius  of  Syracuse,  case  of,  113 

Venezuela,  suppression  of  monasteries 
in,  609 

Venice,  relaxation  of  the  canon  in,  £05 
number  of  priests  in,  588 

Council  of,  in  1859,  627 

Vercelli,  troubles  of  married  priests  in,  152 
Verdun,  reform  of  monks  of,  264 

Veringen,  Count  of,  case  of,  235 

Verneuil,  Synod  of,  in  755,  134 

Vernon,  Council  of,  in  845,  139 

Verona,  trouble  with  married  priests,  151 
Vertfeuil,  extent  of  heresy  in,  370 

Vestal  Virgins,  50 

Vestments,  monastic,  salvation  ensured 
by,  335 

Veuillot,  Louis,  on  droit  de  marquette,  355 
Vicenza,  Council  of  Trent  transferred 
to,  520 

-VT  •  .  •  1  ■»  %  A  1  T-v  •  /I  «  n 


Victimes  de  l’Amour  de  Dieu,  613 


Victor  II.,  his  efforts  at  reform,  191 

enforces  celibacy  in  France,  255 

Victor  III.  on  Italian  church,  180 

Victricius  opposes  Vigilantius,  71 

Vienna,  Council  of,  in  1267,  251 

in  1858,  '  627,  633 

Vienne,  Council  of,  in  1060,  198 

in  1311,  376 

Vigilantius,  his  resistance  to  celibacy,  70 
Vihara.,  Buddhist  monastery,  94 

Villa,  father,  of  Monza,  621 

Villiers,  Abbe,  defends  celibacy,  582 

Villiers  de  l’Isle-Adam,  366 

Vincent,  St.,  de  Paul,  612 

Vintimiglia,  Nunzio,  his  negotiations 
with  Maximilian  II.,  543 

Virgil,  Polydor,  on  celibacy  in  England, 273 
Virgin  Mary,  heresies  concerning,  68  ; 

her  message  to  Gregory  VII.,  226 

Virginal,  Cure  of,  his  opinions,  623  j 

Virginity,  extravagant  praises  of, 

45,  347,  349  ’ 

by  Chrysostom,  86  ; 

importance  attributed  to,  98  ; 

by  the  Fraticelli,  377 

by  Wickliffe,  380 

compared  with  marriage, 

46,  47,  96,  31S,  347  1 
superiority  of,  a  Tridentine  dogma 
of  morals,  536,  641 

St.  Jerome  on  its  rarity,  624 

perpetual,  of  the  Virgin,  68 

vows  of  (see  Votes). 


Virgins,  priests  to  marry  none  but,  38 

number  of,  in  early  church,  98 

professed  (see  Nuvs). 

Visconti,  Nunzio,  on  marriage  at  Trent,  535 
Visitation  of  monasteries  by  Arch¬ 
bishop  Morton,  399 

by  Archbishop  Warbam,  447 

ordered  by  Henry  VIII.,  451 

its  effect,  453 

Vitalis  of  Mortain  preaches  reform,  258 
Vitry,  Jacques  de,  case  of,  398 

Vladislas  II.  on  clerical  immorality,  401 

V ows  of  chastity,  introduction  of,  41 

not  favored  in  early  church,  48 

their  temporary  character,  41,  97 
their  increasing  permanency,  105 

rendered  irrevocable  by  Gregory  I. ,113 
infanticide  caused  by  them,  100 

are  ordered  for  subdeacons,  124 

their  perversion,  127 

made  a  prerequisite  to  holy  orders,  179 
work  dissolution  of  marriage,  313 

difference  between  simple  and 
formal,  321 

are  denounced  by  Lollards,  381 

by  Luther,  421 

are  maintained  in  the  Six  Articles,  469 
prelates  at  Trent  sworn  to  support 
them,  533 

their  observance  a  point  of  faith,  641 

papal  dispensation  for,  535,  642 

never  granted  by  Pius  IX.,  611 
minimum  age  for,  defined  by 
Pius  IX.,  611 

limited  to  five  years  in  France,  613 

Vows,  monastic,  rendered  indissoluble 

in  the  East,  107 

of  the  military  orders,  362 

Vrie,  Theodoric,  on  clerical  immorality,  389 

rAHU,  Dr.,  on  monastic  schools,  619 

on  cases  of  clerical  prosecution,  636 

Wake,  Archbishop,  his  correspondence 
with  Du  Pin,  582 

Waldemar  II.  on  concubines,  197 

Walden,  Abbot  of,  his  marriage,  463 

Waldo,  Peter,  372 

Waldenses,  the,  373 

Waldeck,  Count  of,  his  treatment  of 
monks,  435 

Wales,  celibacy  in  early  church,  163 

state  of  church  in  9th  century,  171 

priestly  marriage  in  13th  century,  285 

its  persistence,  294 

Walter  of  Orleans  on  residence  of  fe¬ 
male  relatives,  138 

Warbam,  Archbishop,  his  visitation,  447 

Wartburg,  Luther’s  confinement  in,  419 

Watten,  Priory  of,  its  troubles,  260 

Wealth  of  church,  its  growth,  63 

Wedlock  (see  Marriage). 

Wenceslas  of  Bohemia,  his  reforms,  383 

Wendt,  Rev.  Mr.,  case  of,  636 

Wer-gild  of  priest,  173 

of  children  of  clerks,  336 

Western  monachism,  character  of,  109,  112 

Westminister,  Council  of,  in  1127,  280 

in  1138,  281 


INDEX. 


681 


Westminster,  Council  of,  in  1852,  626 

short-lived  bishopric  of,  460 

canons  of,  ejected,  479 

Westmoreland,  Earl  of,  his  insurrec¬ 
tion  in  1569,  496 

Weston,  Dr.,  story  of,  477 

Wexford,  married  priests  of,  298 

Whitby,  Synod  of,  in  664,  161 

Wiburn,  Percival,  on  marriage  of  An¬ 
glican  clergy,  495 

Wicelius,  George,  on  clerical  marriage,  542 
Wicklilfeon  sacraments  of  sinful  priests,! 96 
his  reforms,  378 

Widowhood,  vows  of,  license  caused  by,  127 
Widows,  priests  not  to  marry,  39 

order  of,  in  early  church,  42,  96 

comparison  of,  with  virgins,  46,  96,  347 
professed,  marriage  of,  110 

Wied,  Hermann  von,  his  attemps  at 
reform,  518 

Wiesbaden,  clerical  marriage  in  1821,  601 

Wilfreda,  St.,  167 

William  of  Bavaria  on  church  corrup¬ 
tion,  527 

William  of  Cantilupe  enforces  celibacy,  288 
William  of  Cologne  forbids  marriage 
of  monks,  340 

William  the  Conqueror  enforces  celi¬ 
bacy  in  Normandy,  257 

permits  marriage  in  Britanny,  259 

neglects  reform  in  England,  271 

William  of  Hilderniss,  385 

William  the  Lion  on  concubines,  197 

persecutes  the  clergy,  301 

William  of  Malmesbury  on  Anglo- 
Saxon  church,  176 

William  of  Paderborn,  his  failure  to 
reform,  340 

William  of  Sabina,  legate  to  Spain,  310 

William  of  Strassburg  excommuni¬ 
cates  married  priests,  424 

Willibrod,  St.,  his  labors,  126 

Wills,  ecclesiastical,  providing  for  chil¬ 
dren,  337 

Winchester,  reform  of  monastery  of, 

168,  169 

Council  of,  in  1070,  272 

in  1076,  273 

in  1139,  371 

hereditary  transmission  in,  286 

Windsor,  Synod  of,  in  1070,  272 

Wine  of  Eucharist  in  early  church,  44 

abstinence  from,  not  recommended,  48 
Wishart,  George,  his  trial,  510 

Wisigothic  laws  on  clerical  celibacy,  121 

on  church  property,  123 

Wisigoths  of  Spain,  state  of  church 
under,  120 

Witgar  of  Mendlesham,  282 

Witiza,  his  licentious  laws,  121 

Witnesses,  use  of  ordeal  for,  140 

married  priests  not  admitted  as,  294 

four  required  to  prove  solicitation,  571 
Wittenberg,  books  of  canon  law 

burned  at,  418 

Synod  of,  in  1522,  420 

Wives,  demerit  of,  46 

adulterous,  to  be  put  away,  39 

of  Huguenot  pastors,  498 


Wives  of  Anglican  clergy,  their  posi¬ 
tion,  496 

of  bishops,  their  retention,  85,  88 

to  be  separated,  89 

under  the  Franks,  119 

in  Gothic  Spain,  121 

they  rank  as  countesses,  259 
their  position  in  Anglican 
church,  495 

consent  of,  requisite  for  episcopate,  249 
for  diaconate,  250,  251 

for  monastic  vows,  324 

of  monks  to  become  nuns,  114,  205,324 
of  priests,  their  cohabitation  per¬ 
mitted,  28,  48 

forbidden  by  Council  of  Elvira,  50 

permitted  by  Councils  of 

Ancyra  and  Neocassarea,  51 
and  by  Council  of  Nicaea,  53,  54 
and  through  the  4th  cen¬ 
tury,  55,  58,  61,  79 

forbidden  by  Damasus,  64 

and  by  Siricius,  65 

forbidden  in  Gaul  and  Spain,  75 

and  in  Africa,  73 

permitted  in  the  East,  86,  89 

custom  in  modern  Russia,  91 
their  position  under  the  Franks, 120 
legislation  in  Gothic  Spain,  121 
are  to  be  treated  as  sisters,  124 
in  Italy,  in  8th  century,  127 

they  cause  dilapidation  of 
property,  147 

Anglo-Saxon  denunciation  of,  175 
are  stigmatized  as  concubines,  196 
their  fidelity,  202 

their  sufferings,  235 

are  declared  slaves  of  church,  189 
are  reduced  to  slavery,  242,  309 
their  seizure  threatened,  261 

treatment  of,  in  England, 

274,  277,  287 
they  assist  at  altar  in  Germany  ,318 
are  liable  to  death  under  the 
Six  Articles,  468 

legislation  under  Queen  Mary,  485 
are  assumed  to  be  serving 
women,  485 

of  subdeacons  to  be  separated,  124 
Wolff,  Christian,  on  Paphnutius,  57 

on  Council  of  Trent,  640 

Wolfgang  of  Ratisbon  exhorts  to  chas¬ 
tity,  152 

Wolf-hunts,  priests  obliged  to  join  in,  303 
Wolsey,  Cardinal,  attacks  monastic 

orders,  447 

his  fall,  449 

Women,  abstinence  from,  in  pagan 

priesthood,  49 

not  admitted  in  temple  of  Hercules,  50 
admitted  to  monasteries,  101 

their  exclusion  from  monasteries,  403 
their  ministration  forbidden,  60 

their  teaching  forbidden,  60 

discredited  as  witnesses,  571 

rules  for,  in  visiting  bishops,  119 

residence  of  (see  Residence). 

Wood,  T.,  on  position  of  Anglican 


clergy, 


497 


46 


682 


INDEX. 


Worcester,  reformation  of  monks  in,  169 
Chapter  of,  disorders  of,  491 

Works,  merits  of,  in  Catholicism,  115 

in  Calvinism,  498 

justification  by,  in  Scotland,  506 

in  Knox’s  confession,  512 

Worms,  Diet  of,  in  1076,  234 

Wurtzburg,  Council  of,  in  1446,  377 

in  1548,  .  52S 

character  of  clergy,  in  1521,  431 

clerical  marriage  in,  555 

Wu-Tsung,  his  persecution  of  Buddhism, 95 
Wyatt’s  rebellion,  suppression  of,  478 


"^IMENES  reforms  tbe  Franciscans, 


402 


JOGA  system,  asceticism  of,  23 

York,  its  claim  on  Scottish  church,  161 
Council  of,  in  1195,  288 

Wolsey’s  reformation  at,  447 


York,  married  priests  ejected  in,  180 

Ypres,  Synod  of,  in  1629,  562 

abuse  of  confessional  in  1768,  577 

Yves  of  Chartres  (see  Ivo). 


406 

248 

29 

55 

58 


7ABARELLA,  Cardinal,  advocates 
^  clerical  marriage, 

Zabolcs,  Synod  of,  in  1092, 

Zaccaria  on  origin  of  celibacy, 
on  the  Nicene  canon, 
on  Gregory  of  Nazianzum, 
on  dissolution  of  priestly  marriage,  317 
his  defence  of  celibacy,  583-4 

Zachary,  Pope,  on  Frankish  church,  130 
on  Saxon  church,  164 

Zaga  Zabo,  his  account  of  Coptic  church,  93 
Zagow,  Abbey  of,  foundation  of,  181 

Zurich,  priests  of,  defend  their  women,  340 
Zwilling,  Gabriel,  preaches  against  mo- 
nasticism,  421 

Zwingli  demands  priestly  marriage,  421 


WORKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


STUDIES  IN  CHURCH  HISTORY. 


The  Rise  of  the  Temporal  Power— Benefit  of  Clergy — Excommunica¬ 
tion — The  Early  Church  and.  Slavery. 


Second  edition,  revised.  In  one  large  royal  12mo.  volume  of  603  pages. 

Cloth,  §2.50.  Just  issued. 


No  part  of  this  learned  and  authoritative 
work  has  escaped  revision.  The  new  matter 
strengthens,  illustrates  more  copiously,  and 
enlivens  with  anecdote  the  original  argu¬ 
ment,  and,  by  adducing  modern  instances, 
brings  the  work  up  to  date. — N.  Y.  Nation, 
May  24,  1833. 

The  author  is  preeminently  a  scholar  ;  he 
takes  up  every  topic  allied  with  the  leading 
theme  and  traces  it  out  to  the  minutest  de¬ 
tail  with  a  wealth  of  knowledge  and  im¬ 
partiality  of  treatment  that  compel  ad¬ 
miration.  The  amount  of  information  com¬ 
pressed  into  the  book  is  extraordinar3r,  and 
the  profuse  citation  of  authorities  and  refer¬ 
ences  makes  the  work  particularly  valuable 
to  the  student  who  desires  an  exhaustive 
review  from  original  sources.  In  no  other 
singie  volume  is  the  development  of  the 
primitive  church  traced  with  so  much  clear¬ 
ness  and  with  so  definite  a  perception  of 
complex  or  conflicting  forces.  —  Boston 
Traveller ,  May  3,  1883. 


Mr.  Lea  is  facile  princeps  among  Ameri¬ 
can  scholars  in  the  history  of  the  Middle 
Age3,  and,  indeed,  we  know  of  no  European 
writer  who  has  shown  such  research,  accu¬ 
racy,  and  grasp  in  investigating  important 
and  out-of-the-way  topics  connected  with 
the  history  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
— N.  Y.  Times,  April  30,  1883. 

It  is  some  years  since  we  read  the  first 
edition  of  this  work  by  Mr.  Lea,  and  the 
impression  made  by  it  on  us  at  the  time  is 
confirmed  by  reperusal  of  it  in  this  en¬ 
larged  and  improved  form,  namely,  that  it 
!  is  a  book  of  great  research  and  accuracy, 
1  full  of  varied  information  on  very  interest- 
!  ing  phases  of  church  life  and  history.  It 
i  discusses  each  subject  with  a  rare  fulness 
of  dates  and  instances,  and  a  curious  con¬ 
scientiousness  of  verification  and  citation 
of  authorities. — Edinburgh  Scotsman,  June 
2,  1 883. 


SUPERSTITION  AND  FORCE. 

Essays  on  The  Wager  of  Law,  The  Wager  of  Battle, 

The  Ordeal,  and  Torture. 

Third  revised  and  enlarged  edition.  In  one  handsome  royal  12mo.  volume  of 

552  pages.  Cloth  §2.50. 


This  valuable  work  is  in  reality  a  history 
of  civilization  as  interpreted  bv  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  jurisprudence.  In  “  Superstition  ! 
and  Force"  we  have  a  philosophic  survey 
of  the  long  period  intervening  between 
primitive  barbarity  and  civilized  enlighten¬ 
ment.  There  is  not  a  chapter  in  the  work 
that  should  not  be  most  carefully  studied  ; 
and,  however  well  versed  the  reader  may 
be  in  the  science  of  jurisprudence,  he  will 
find  much  in  Mr.  Lea's  volume  of  which  he 
was  previously  ignorant.  The  book  is  a 
valuable  addition  to  the  literature  of  social 
science. —  Westminster  Review,  Jan.  1880. 

This  is  a  book  of  extraordinary  research. 
Mr.  Lea  has  entered  into  his  subject  con  j 
amove,  and  a  more  striking  record  of  the 
cruel  superstitions  of  our  Middle  Ages  ; 
could  not  possibly  have  been  compiled. 
As  a  work  of  curious  enquiry  into  certain 
outlying  points  of  obsolete  law,  “  Supersti¬ 
tion  and  Force"  is  one  of  the  most  remark¬ 


able  works  we  have  met  with. — London 
Athenaeum ,  November  3,  1866. 

The  appearance  of  a  third  edition  of  Mr. 
Henry  C.  Lea's  “  Superstition  and  Force  " 
is  a  sign  that  our  highest  scholarship  is  not 
without  honor  in  its  native  country. — N.  Y. 
Nation,  August  1,  1878. 

Mr.  Lea’s  curious  historical  monographs, 
of  which  one  of  the  most  important  is  here 
reproduced  in  an  enlarged  form,  have  given 
him  an  unique  position  among  English  and 
American  scholars.  He  is  distinguished 
for  his  recondite  and  affluent  learning,  his 
power  of  exhaustive  historical  analysis,  the 
breadth  and  accuracy  of  his  researches 
among  the  rarer  sources  of  knowledge,  the 
gravity  and  temperance  of  his  statements, 
combined  with  singular  earnestness  of  con¬ 
viction,  and  his  warm  attachment  to  the 
cause  of  freedom  and  intellectual  progress. 
— N.  Y.  Tribune,  August  9,  1878. 


HENRY  C.  LEA' S  SON  &  CO. ,  PHILADELPHIA. 


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•  ^ 


